Homily for 33d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
33d Sunday of Ordinary Time

Nov. 16, 2014

Prov 31: 10-13, 19-20, 30-31
Matt 25: 14-30
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle

“Give her the reward of her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates” (Prov 31: 31).

I dare say that in this congregation you seldom hear a homily on Proverbs 31!  But why shouldn’t you, O spouses of Christ?

Knowing, as we do, how the Lectionary is constructed, we know that the Proverbs reading is paired with the parable from St. Matthew (25:14-30).  In these last Sundays of the church year, the Scriptures are turning our attention to the last days and to the impending judgment—judgment on the world, judgment on us.  So this morning we hear one of Jesus’ parables of judgment, and Proverbs transports us to the ancient world’s place of judgment, the city gates.  Both readings refer to rewards for industrious and faithful people, the servants of a wealthy merchant who invest his money wisely; and “a worthy wife [whose] value is far beyond pearls.”

Both readings also use the word “fear.”  “The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Prov 31:30); i.e., she reverences and obeys him, which is the mark of her wisdom, the incentive for her behavior, and the reason for praising her.  The 3d servant in the parable fears his master in the sense of being afraid of his wrath—and acts so foolishly as to incur that wrath (Matt 25:25-26).

So, how does a wise woman (or man) behave?

1. “Her husband, entrusting his heart to her, has an unfailing prize” (31:11).  Love binds them to each other.  They trust each other.  They talk intimately to each other.  They prize each other.  That’s a mark of true marriage, whether earthly or mystical, and it’s the goal of every Christian—to attain a complete union of heart, mind, and soul with Jesus, and thru Jesus with the Father.

2. “She brings him good, and not evil, all the days of her life” (31:12).  What do we bring to the Lord?  Whatever our calling in life, we aim to bring him good deeds—to invest his blessings wisely and return them to him with profit (to go along with the message of the parable).  In our Baptism we profess a life of conversion, of renouncing the devil and all his works, and of walking with Jesus, who “went about doing good” (Act 10:38) and giving evidence that God was with him.

3. “She obtains wool and flax and works with loving hands” (Prov 31:13).  Interesting variants in translations here!  The Lectionary gives her loving hands, but the NAB text, and Msgr. Knox’s, read skillful hands; the JB gives us eager hands, and the KJV and RSV willing hands.  The Douay Version translates the Vulgate literally, “she … hath wrought by the counsel of her hands,” which an old commentary interprets to mean “with alacrity,” i.e., with “cheerful readiness.”  The Anchor Bible renders the phrase “delights to work with her hands” and offers an alternate, “of which her hands make beautiful things.”  I’m no Greek scholar, but the LXX seems to say that “she makes useful things.”  (I could show you the Hebrew text too, but I can’t read it or tell you what it means.)  The point would seem to be that “a worthy wife,” or a good disciple, does what she does eagerly and willingly.  In the context of Proverbs, she loves her husband and family, and that love compels her to work diligently and efficiently to provide for them, and not to work like a drudge (compare with the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son).  We all have our duties, our responsibilities—in the household of the community, perhaps still in some apostolate.  How do we carry them out?  What willingness, what love, what alacrity do we bring to these tasks?  Are they just chores, or something more, thru which we’re happily serving the Lord?

4. “She reaches out her hands to the poor, and extends her arms to the needy.”  The worthy wife, the faithful disciple, is concerned not only with those in her immediate charge but with the wider community, with the less fortunate, with those whom the OT often refers to as the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; with those whom Jesus will put in front of our noses in his parable next week, the parable that follows this week’s in Matthew 25.  While charity must begin at home, with the people we live with, it must also extend to others; and I’m sure it does for you, who attend to immigrants and the elderly, among others.

5. “Charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting” (Prov 31:30). Well do we know that!  We know what lasts:  “Faith, hope, and love remain; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13).

6. “The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Prov 31:30).  Not only the woman, of course.  The ultimate praise for a good life is not that one is beautiful or talented or industrious; it is that one has served the Lord in one’s state of life with one’s attributes, talents, and industry, and served him with love or alacrity.

7. “Give her a reward for her labors, and let her works praise her at the city gates” (Prov 31:31).  For all our troubles on earth, a little piece of heaven will be enuf compensation, Don Bosco used to say.  Do we work for the reward—some metaphorical gold star or golden crown?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps we interpret the reward to be simply being with our Beloved.  We’ve all observed couples who are never happier than when in each other’s company.  We might look at Mary sitting at the Lord’s feet, having “chosen the better part” (Luke 10:42).  Is there a better reward than to be with Jesus forever?  Can there be higher praise than hearing the Divine Judge pronounce, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Come, share your master’s joy” (Matt 25:21)?

 

Homily for the Anniversary of the
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
Nov. 9, 2014
Collect
Iona College, N.R.
St. Ursula, Mt. Vernon

“O God, from living and chosen stones you prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty” (Collect).

Today we celebrate one of those feasts that supersedes our usual Sunday celebrations.  In the liturgical books it’s titled “Dedication of the Lateran Basilica.”

So, what’s the Lateran Basilica?  What’s a basilica?  Why is this one called the Lateran?  And why celebrate it, or the dedication of any church?  If you can answer those questions, you’re ready for Jeopardy.

Basilica originally indicated certain Roman official buildings; the name itself is Greek and means “king’s hall.”  In Christian usage it refers to Christ, the king of kings.  The term also refers to the architectural style of those old Roman buildings, which I’ll spare you.  Now the word refers not to a style but to a church’s honorary designation as a papal church—a title that might be bestowed because of the church’s particular historical, devotional, or artistic merit.  Local examples include Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the Lower East Side and Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark.  The main campus church at the University of Notre Dame is Sacred Heart Basilica.  A church need not be a cathedral to be named a basilica, nor are all cathedrals basilicas.

In Rome there are 4 major basilicas and many minor ones.  The major ones are the destinations of frequent pilgrimages, especially the most famous:  St. Peter’s in the Vatican.  The others are St. Mary Major, St. Paul Outside the Walls (at Paul’s tomb, outside the ancient city walls), and the one we celebrate today, formally known as St. John Lateran.

(© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons)

You’d be surprised to learn that the Lateran is the most important of the basilicas.  Why?  Because it’s the cathedral church of Rome, the proper church of the bishop of Rome, the Pope’s own cathedral.  The Lateran Palace, next to the church, was the papal residence from the 4th century until 1309, when a French Pope decided to move to Avignon.  While the Popes stayed at Avignon, until 1377, fire destroyed the Lateran buildings; so when Pope Gregory XI decided to return the papacy to Rome, there was no Lateran to return to, and he settled instead in the Vatican palace, and there the Popes have remained.  Besides, the Vatican was more defensible against Roman mobs and enemy armies; if you know anything about the history of the papacy, you know the significance of that.

The property on which the Lateran church and palace are built, given to the Church by the Emperor Constantine, had once belonged to a noble Roman family named the Laterani; hence part of the name.  The church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist; hence the rest of the name.

Why celebrate the anniversary of a church’s dedication, which every diocese does for its cathedral—in New York we celebrate St. Patrick’s dedication on Oct. 5—and every parish church is supposed to do?  Because the building is a major symbol:  a symbol of the Church proper, i.e., the people of God, and of Jesus Christ himself.

As for the latter, we heard Jesus refer to his own body as a temple (John 2:19).  And for the former, we followers of Jesus are part of his body and thus part of the temple.  St. Paul calls us the body of Christ.  In the reading that we heard this evening/morning, he calls us “the temple of God” and the dwelling place of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 3:16).  It’s not the building itself that we honor, but what goes on in that building:  the forming and the building up of the Body of Christ thru the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments and thru the worship that we offer to the Father thru Christ in the Holy Spirit.

The Collect alludes to the words of 1 Peter 2:5:  “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God thru Jesus Christ.”  The Collect calls us “living and chosen stones,” and it says that from these stones God the Father “prepares an eternal dwelling for [his] majesty.”  God plans to dwell eternally in us as his temple—an indwelling that began with our Baptism and that continues thru our life as Christ’s disciples.  The Preface will refer to “this house of prayer”—either the basilica that we celebrate today or this particular church building—and note that God “is pleased to dwell in” it “in order to perfect us as the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

All of that is true of any church building—this chapel, a parish church, a cathedral.  Why are we celebrating the cathedral church of Rome?  Every cathedral represents the bishop’s teaching authority; it’s the site of his cathedra, his chair for teaching and ruling, for shepherding, the People of God.  As bishop of Rome the Pope is Peter’s successor and bears Peter’s responsibilities:  to safeguard the teaching of Jesus handed down to us by the apostles, to guarantee the unity of the faithful around that teaching.  At the beginning of the 2d century, St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote that the Church of Rome “presides in charity” over all the other local churches.  Thus the basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral church of Rome, has often been called “the mother church of Christendom.”  It’s the seat of Peter’s authority living today.  From this chair Peter speaks, guarding the truth of the Gospel.  From this chair Peter guides the flock of Christ toward “the holy dwelling of the Most High” (Ps 46:5), “the heavenly Jerusalem” where we shall be the “eternal dwelling” of the Divine Majesty (Collect).

Inscription at St. John Lateran: "Most Holy Lateran Church, the mother and head of all the churches in the city and the world," (© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons)

 

Cardinal Dolan Brings His Enthusiasm for Don Bosco to Salesian High

Cardinal Dolan Brings His Enthusiasm for Don Bosco to Salesian High

by Fr. John Serio, SDB, and Fr. Mike Mendl, SDB

Fr. John wrote the bulk of this story for the province newsletter, E-Service. Fr. Mike edited it in his role as newsletter editor and added some substantial material as well as the photos.

Anticipation turned to reality in New Rochelle on Wednesday, November 5, as the long-awaited visit of Cardinal Timothy Dolan to Salesian High School occurred. The visit was long-awaited in two senses: the invitation to the cardinal to celebrate Mass with the school community and visit with the students and faculty was issued a year earlier, and it was the first visit of a New York archbishop to the school since Cardinal Cooke came in 1971.



Lorraine Danza, John Flaherty, Fr. John Serio, and Michele Turner
greet Cardinal Dolan and his party at the school entrance.

His Eminence was greeted at the school entrance by John Flaherty, principal, veteran faculty member Lorraine Danza, and a delegation of office staff and students. After riding in a Salesian school bus to Holy Name of Jesus Church, where Salesian’s school Masses are celebrated, Cardinal Dolan was greeted again by a delegation of students. When he entered the church, all heads turned as the congregation strained to get a look at their archbishop.

During the Mass in honor of St. John Bosco’s 200^th anniversary of birth, Cardinal Dolan spoke of his great devotion to St. John Bosco, first inculcated by his 2^nd grade teacher, Sister Mary Bosco. He spoke enthusiastically of the contributions of the Salesians to the life of the archdiocese and of his joy at meeting Salesian High School alumni all over the archdiocese, living out many careers and vocations, including as diocesan priests. He noted the presence of three SDB seminarians who are Salesian alumni: Deacon Mike Eguino, Bro. Steve Eguino, and candidate Mike Agovino. He thanked the teachers for their service and had them stand, which earned them a hearty round of applause from the students.

In his homily proper, the cardinal related that Don Bosco wanted his boys “to live well in order to die well”–to live this life in a manner that prepared them for the life of eternity with the Lord. The joy of this life, he said, is only a hint of what God has in store for us in the next life. He said that St. John Bosco’s genius was to prepare young people for eternity.

At the end of Mass, Student Council President Dan Seda welcomed His Eminence and offered him gifts of Salesian apparel, a copy of Fr. Mike Mendl’s history of the start of Salesian work in New York (The Zeal of the Salesians Is Just the Thing*), which the cardinal asked Fr. Mike to autograph, and a monetary gift which the cardinal said he would donate to the Inner City Scholarship Fund. Of course, the cardinal offered the students (and faculty!) a cardinal’s holiday—which received applause that exceeded “hearty.”

Frs. John Serio, Bill Ferruzzi, Matt DeGance, Dennis Donovan, Dominic Tran, and Marty Biglin (Holy Name’s pastor) concelebrated.

After greeting the students and staff of Holy Name School, the cardinal returned to the Salesian campus and toured the main building. He entered the library and some classrooms to interact with students and teachers, and ate lunch with members of the History Club (photo below). During lunch he questioned students and teachers about the previous day’s general elections and the role of religious ministers in the political life of the country. He called political service noble and urged the application of one’s principles to politics. He cited the example of Don Bosco in 19th-century Italy’s political and religious situation.

The cardinal used his conversations with students not only to show them the friendly and joyful visage of the Church but also to praise the education they’re getting at Salesian and offer more catechesis. For example, in a junior class that is reading and discussing The Red Badge of Courage, he spoke about the role of conscience in the story and linked conscience to natural law. On a lighter note, he let a freshman class with a New York Mets banner on the back wall know that he remains a St. Louis Cardinals fan (and flaunted some of the cardinal red of his mozzetta).

The cardinal steps into Scott Cerasuolo's class discussion of The Red Badge of Courage.

In Sr. Barbara Wright's freshman math class: 
Never mind the Mets poster on the back wall--I'm still a Cardinals fan!

The members of the G-5 mission directors group also came by for a short conversation and blessing by His Eminence. The cardinal lauded the Salesians’ missionary works and relished a conversation in Italian with the two visitors from Turin and happily recalled meeting Bro. Jean Paul Muller in Rome a few weeks ago.

The cardinal warmly greets the participants in the meeting of Salesian mission office directors
from New Rochelle, Madrid, Bonn, Turin, and New Delhi, and the
general councilor for the missions and the treasurer general of the Congregation.

It is not every day that the local ordinary comes to spend time with our community. He seemed really to enjoy his time with our community, wanted to know everything that he could about us, and evidenced his love for Don Bosco and devotion to Mary Help of Christians. Multiple times Cardinal Dolan invoked the Help of Christians in prayer and called out, “Viva Don Bosco!” We are grateful for the time he spent with us and will look forward to being with him again at the Graduates Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the spring and for the priestly ordination of Salesian alumnus Michael Eguino, SDB, class of 2002, on June 27, 2015.

*The book by your humble blogger is "The Zeal of the Salesians Is Just the Thing...": Founding the Salesian Work in New York. Written for the 1998 centennial of the SDB work on the East Coast, it studies the establishment of the SDBs in New York in historical context, from 1883 to 1908. ISBN 0-89944-174-2. It may be ordered from Salesiana Publishers (914-636-4225; butterfly10801@yahoo.com).

Homily for All Souls Day

Homily for
All Souls Day
Nov. 2, 2014
Collect 1
Scouts, Putnam Valley
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison

“May our hope of resurrection for your departed servants find new strength” (Collect).

Each year we have this solemn day of prayer for the people we call “the faithful departed”; our prayer a little while ago called them the Lord’s “departed servants,” and of course if they were his servants, they were faithful.  If they were faithful and if they served the Lord, we might ask why we pray for them.

It’s no coincidence that this day of prayer is set in the calendar on the day after All Saints Day, our yearly celebration of all the countless, mostly anonymous men and women who have faithfully followed Christ in this life and now have attained eternal life with him in heaven.

So who are these “faithful departed” whom we both honor and pray for today?  They are our brothers and sisters who have died but, because of their sins—we might say more accurately, perhaps, because of their sinful inclinations and habits and attitudes (we all identify with that, don’t we?)—aren’t yet worthy of coming into God’s presence in heaven.  Nothing unclean, nothing unworthy, nothing imperfect may come into God’s presence.  So these good but not perfect people are still being cleansed, scrubbed clean, so to speak.  You know how after the Scouts clean the pots after supper, someone has to finish the job till they’re truly clean enuf to use for the next meal.  Similarly, the “faithful departed” for whom we’re praying are still having their souls scrubbed, their of love of God and of others perfected, so that they may join the angels and saints in heaven—those who’ve already reached a perfect way of loving and have no stain of selfishness left to them.  (We all know how selfishness clings to us!)

Purgatory, by Annibale Carracci (d. 1609)

We call this place or state of cleansing, of purification, “purgatory,” which means simply the “cleaning place” or “cleaning operation.”  Naturally, since we’re still alive, we don’t know how God purifies these people who are future saints.  I’m sure it’s not like going to the dry cleaners or into the dishwasher!  We do know that these souls, whom we sometimes call the holy souls because they have been faithful servants of the Lord, long to have their sins and their sinfulness completely cleaned away so that their salvation will be complete.  We use an analogy sometimes, that they get purified in the fire of God’s love; God’s love washes over them, perhaps painfully—because they see their own faults in his light.  And seeing our faults is always a painful thing, as we know from our experiences with parents, principals, bosses.  And God’s searing love cleans them, makes them perfect, makes them worthy of heaven.

So we pray for them, or as you often hear it expressed, we pray for the souls in purgatory.  That’s what we do on All Souls Day and thruout the month of November, which is the “month of the poor souls,” and we’re encouraged to pray for the faithful departed always.  You may notice that we do pray for them at every Mass, after the consecration of the bread and wine into Christ’s Body and Blood, when we make various intercessions.

Our faith tells us that all Christ’s faithful servants will be raised up with Christ to eternal life, the life of the resurrection.  St. Paul says, “if we have grown into union with him thru a death like his [which means dying to sin], we shall also be united with him in the resurrection” (Rom 6:5).  Our opening prayer expressed that hope, that confidence we have in God’s faithfulness to his promises, e.g., what Jesus says today:  “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

This is our prayer for all the faithful departed, and in particular for deceased members of our family, deceased friends, [deceased Scouts and Scouters—and we remember in special way Scoutmaster Michael Andrew Boccardi, who is memorialized in our annual trek-o-ree.  Mr. Boccardi was an Eagle Scout in Troop 40 Mt. Vernon and eventually became 40’s super-dedicated Scoutmaster for 6 or 7 years, and a friend to many of the Scouters here.  He was among those killed at work on 9/11.  May he and all who perished on that awful day rest in peace with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and be raised up with him on the Last Day!]

Salesian Volunteer Programs

Salesian Volunteer Programs

Many SDB and FMA provinces sponsor programs that enable young people--and some not so young, too--to volunteer their services, their time, their attitudes, and their love for less advantaged youngsters in other parts of the world.  For example, such volunteer programs exist in the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic, to list those that come readily to my mind.

We've blogged here every August about the Salesian Lay Missioners, a program of Salesian Missions in New Rochelle that sends volunteers presently to Bolivia, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and sites in the U.S.  For example, go to http://sdbnews.blogspot.com/2014/08/salesians-commission-20-lay-missioners.html

The SLM Website provides a "blogroll" whereby you can follow posts from many of the volunteers about their lives, activities, spiritual reflections, challenges, friendships, and apostolates.

Salesian Volunteers, the program of the San Francisco Province, has just come up with a fine promotional video.  This program places volunteers in California and Mexico.

Both U.S. programs--the one in New Rochelle and the one in California--take volunteers from anywhere in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. See their Web sites for more information!

Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Oct. 26, 2014

1 Thess 1: 5-10

St. Ursula, Mt. Vernon

“You became imitators of us and of the Lord, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia” (1 Thess 1: 6-7).

We began reading 1 Thess last week, and so we know that the “us” and “we” of today’s reading are Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, who have brought the Gospel to Thessalonica.  Their preaching seems to have been very successful, and if Paul’s testimony in this passage is true, that success would seem to be in part because the missionaries have backed their preaching by their actions:  “You know what sort of people we were among you” (1:5), people worthy of imitation.

If the whole Church is missionary, as the 2d Vatican Council has reminded us, and Pope Francis has reminded us; if all of us are to be evangelizers of the people and the culture that we inhabit—then the 1st form of our preaching is necessarily our lifestyle, our example, and not our homilies, catechism lessons, radio programs, Facebook, etc.  Contrariwise, the scandalous lives and words of some Christians serve to drive some people out of the Church and to alienate some who weren’t believers to begin with.

St. Paul
St. Mary's Church,
Fredericksburg, Va.

Paul takes that role-modeling a step further:  “You became imitators of us and of the Lord.”  “The Lord” here refers to Jesus, whom every Christian is called to imitate, on whom every Christian is supposed to model himself or herself.  Paul is also saying that he and his collaborators are doing exactly that, so that by imitating them the believers at Thessalonica are at the same time imitating Jesus.

Isn’t that the way we’re all supposed to live, sisters (and brothers)?  to live so that people see Jesus in our actions and words, and are attracted to imitate those admirable actions and words?  In recent years, how many kids have wanted to be no. 2—not Avis, but Derek Jeter?  They pretend to hit like him, field like him, throw like him, and perhaps hope someday be a Yankee like him.  Shouldn’t young people look at their parents, their teachers, their church leaders, their coaches or Scouting leaders, and see role models whom they want to imitate and who are worthy of imitation?  If we don’t provide good models of Jesus and the saints for them, then we leave them only athletes and entertainers to look up to.

Paul says that the Thessalonians “received the word in great affliction, with joy in the Holy Spirit.”  That seems like something of a contradiction, affliction and joy both coming from the word—the word of the Gospel that Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy have preached.

How might God’s word afflict us?  By calling us to conversion!  Who finds change easy and welcome, especially moral change?  Even we who already profess to be Christians find it hard to shake off our sins, to renounce our vices.  Doesn’t the idea of going to confession, admitting our guilt out loud and committing ourselves to greater fidelity, afflict many of us, maybe most of us?

Secondarily, God’s word is a source of affliction for those who take it seriously because a serious Christian life is a sign of contradiction in the world.  We don’t feel at home in our contemporary culture, do we?  We’re afflicted, or conflicted.  We may feel pressured to conform; as kids may be pressured to engage in inappropriate behavior, so may adults be.

At the same time, the word of God gives us “joy from the Holy Spirit.”  We receive the word of forgiveness, of reconciliation with God, and of God’s offer of eternal life—all reasons for profound joy and peace of heart.

That kind of joy is contagious.  “You became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.”  By imitating Paul and his companions, by imitating Christ, by committing themselves to conversion of life and taking on the hostile world, the Christians of Thessalonica have themselves become models for other believers.  While Paul may be exaggerating to some extent about how far their fame has spread, still, it’s no little thing that all the local churches of mainland Greece, such as those at Philippi and Corinth, look up to them.

“From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth,” Paul continues (1:8).  Paul uses a word suggestive of a trumpet blaring out a regal command or a battle signal, something really noticeable, something one must pay attention to.  The Thessalonians haven’t kept their faith quietly to themselves, like the ill-fated servant in Jesus’ parable (Matt 25:14-30) who buried his master’s gold talent in the ground, carefully preserving it but also leaving it barren and useless.  Rather, they’ve let the whole world—at least the Christian portion of it—know that they’re disciples of Jesus Christ.

What that “sounding forth” entailed is a bit hard to say.  Did they send out missionaries?  Did they send messengers of fraternity to the other Christian communities?  Did they send financial assistance to the needy?  Were they outstanding hosts of travelers coming from the other churches on either ecclesiastical or personal business?

Whatever it was, “in every place your faith in God has gone forth” (1:8).  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if that could be said of us?  that everyone knows what committed and faithful Catholics we are, by our words and even more by our actions?  We might think now of some of the tributes paid to the late Fr. Benedict Groeschel not only for his TV appearances, his books,  his homilies, or his teaching but also for his work for and among the poorest people of our nation;

Fr. Ben Groeschel, St. Joseph's Seminary
April 22, 2009

or of the tributes paid to journalist Jim Foley, whom ISIS murdered in August and who was a very committed Catholic.  One of Foley’s peers wrote of him:  “Foley was a devout Christian who, unlike most journalists I've known during my almost four decades in the field, was unapologetic about his heart for social justice and the inspiration he found for his beliefs in the New Testament.”[1]

How does our faith go forth—to our children and grandchildren, the people we work with and socialize with, even our fellow parishioners?

Finally, Paul gives a bit, a tiny bit, of a summary of the Gospel that he preached in the middle of the 1st century:  “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath” (1:9-10).

There you have the conversion:  “turning from idols to serve the living and true God.”  In the case of the people of Thessalonica, there was a literal turning away from idols, the pagan gods of Greece, to serve the one and only God.  A lot of our contemporaries commit themselves to different sorts of idols, different false gods, that they serve ambitiously and enthusiastically.  Those gods include money, power, fame, and pleasure in many, many forms.  A lot of Christians serve those gods, too, and all of us pay them homage from time to time—those moments that we call “sin.”  Following Jesus means giving ourselves wholeheartedly—ambitiously and enthusiastically—to serving God alone; exactly as Jesus says in the gospel today (Matt 22:34-40).  Our conversion into Jesus’ disciples is an unending process of learning to do that, repenting of our slip-ups, starting again, doing our best to “love the Lord our God with all our heart” and to practice love of our neighbor.

All of which we do because we believe Jesus is risen, and we await his return, when he’ll lead his followers into eternal life, “delivering us from the coming wrath” of God’s judgment on unrepentant sinners (judgment that was illustrated in Jesus’ parable 2 weeks ago when a guest who refused to clothe himself in the repentance that opens up for us the banquet of heaven was thrown out of the feast).  That’s also why, like the Thessalonians, we evangelize, live the Gospel publicly—so that we may be models and our joyful good example may lead others toward eternal life with our Savior Jesus Christ.

An adapted version of this homily was delivered to the Ursuline nuns at their Willow Drive convent, Oct. 26, 2014.

---

        [1] David McKay Wilson, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News, Aug. 24, 2014, on-line.

Homily for 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Matt 22: 15-21
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.
Oct. 19, 2014

“Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Matt 20: 21).

Tribute to Caesar
(Gustave Dore')

I liked the old translation, “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.”  In any case, that verse is one of the most famous in the NT, and not because it shows Jesus’ cleverness in evading a trap set for him by his enemies.

Rather, it’s famous because of the challenge it presents to Christ’s followers to balance our lives and allegiances between this world and the next, between what St. Augustine identified as the city of man and the city of God, or in common American speech, between State and Church.  Jesus challenges the officials or authorities of both Church and State to know what their responsibilities are and where their limits are; he challenges us citizens of an earthly city who are his followers to give due attention to both God and country.

Thru the course of history, we’ve seen many examples of Caesar, i.e., the State, trying to control every aspect of the life of his citizens, including their consciences.  Recall not only the Roman Empire’s demands that everyone worship the emperor and the gods, but also the religious wars of the 16th century, the Nazis, and Communism.  In May of this year an American tourist in North Korea, James Fowle, left a Bible in a public restroom, apparently intentionally.  He was arrested, charged with anti-State activity, and is awaiting trial and the possibility of a long prison sentence.  In our country, numerous religious institutions—schools, hospitals, nursing homes, etc.—many of them Catholic, but of other denominations as well, have had to sue the Dept. of HHS to defend their rights of conscience against the coercive regulations implementing the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare—regulations that, among other things, seek to define what is religious practice and what isn’t, and to confine religion only to worship in your church building and to catechism class.  Various institutions and individuals are being coerced by city, state, and educational authorities to approve homosexual behavior; the latest example I’ve seen is that the New England Assn. of Schools and Colleges is giving Gordon College, a Christian school in Massachusetts, a year to “review” its policy prohibiting homosexual behavior on campus because it’s sinful behavior.[1]

On the other side, there are both historical and contemporary examples of religious leaders interfering with affairs of state, e.g., Popes attempting to depose secular rulers or Muslims running or trying to run countries by strictly religious rules (the imams in Iran, Boko Haram in Nigeria, the “Islamic State” so much in the news these days).

How do you and I render to Caesar—to the State, to civil society—what is due to it, and to God what is due to him?

To start where today’s gospel starts, we owe the State taxes.  Yes, however painful that is.  Our taxes provide government services, such basic things as trash pick-up and snow-plowing, managing the public airwaves, coordinating air transportation, running the subways.  They pay for police and fire protection and help us cope with natural disasters.  We expect that governments to do something about the Ebola epidemic and not leave it entirely to Doctors Without Borders and missionaries in Africa.  Our taxes paid for the personnel and weapons that saved the world from the Nazis, saved Western Europe from Stalin, and, we demand now, will save the Middle East from the Islamic State.  (Whether our taxes are always wisely and ethically used is a separate question.)

As citizens in a democracy, we have an obligation to vote, to make our voices heard on election day.  Our elections help determine public policies about war and peace, social justice, public health, and all sorts of things that concern the common good.  Voting carries with it an obligation to be informed about the issues and the candidates and any ballot questions that may come up.  It’s unconscionable—sinful, in other words—to vote for someone just because the person belongs to a particular party, is a certain race or nationality, is a certain gender, comes from a certain city or state, or has Hollywood good looks.

It’s also good for us to let public officials know our opinions outside of election time, e.g., by letter-writing or peaceful public protest, or even to be involved in politics or public service.  In making our voices heard on public issues, however, it’s important that we speak the civil language.  We may not promote a certain policy to the general public—whether it’s about abortion, immigration, the environment, or civil rights—because of God’s Law or what the Bible says.  That’s a religious intrusion and doesn’t carry much weight with the U.S. Constitution or the general public.  (How religious leaders address their own congregations is another matter, of course.  Right now I’m telling you what the Gospel requires of you.)

We all have an obligation to contribute to the common good, and not just by paying our taxes and voting.  Do we get involved in our kids’ school?  in some form of youth or civic activity—volunteer work of some sort, like a soup kitchen, Midnite Run, Habitat for Humanity, EMS where that’s done by volunteers, the Red Cross, Scouting, etc.?

Jesus also tells us to render to God what belongs to God.  For us as individuals, that begins with worship, both public (as on Sundays) and private (our daily prayer).  It ought to include regular Scripture reading, an important way of listening to God.

Serving God includes more than prayer, tho.  We need to be involved in our church, our parish, performing service of some sort (greeter, usher, cleaner, council member, helper at socials, catechist, participant in the parish’s outreach to the community, etc.).

Our service to God, our adherence to Christ, is a 7-day responsibility.  We can’t be Christians on Sunday and pagans Monday thru Saturday.  A few weeks ago, a couple of guys in Montana who’d gotten “married” to each other were told by their pastor they could no longer receive Holy Communion; the bishop backed the pastor, but the parish was divided.  One of the men involved told the media, in disbelief, “We didn't think anything would happen.  Church is one thing; civil society is another.”  One Catholic blogger reacted this way:

The logical end of this thinking seems to be that it only matters what happens in Church and then once you step outside the Church (or maybe the parking lot) all bets are off until next Sunday. This is the exact opposite of truth. Christians are given a very specific task to live the gospel, not just for one hour a week on Sunday.

It's the same line of thinking which bring the loud proclamations that the Church doesn't tell me what to do in the bedroom. I've always wondered what other rooms of the house the Church is banished from? According to many, it would seem all of them.[2]

That’s why at the end of Mass we’re often dismissed with lines like “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life” or “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”  That’s why our prayers at Mass often contain lines like today’s:  “Almighty ever-living God, grant that we may always conform our will to yours…” (emphasis added).



A denarius of Tiberius Caesar
emperor during Jesus' public life



Another way of looking at our obligations to God is this.  When the Pharisees presented Jesus with a denarius, what did he ask them?  “Whose image is this?”—the image indicating ownership or title, like a brand on a steer or a corporate logo.  Now look at yourself and the people around you.  Whose image are you and they?   You all remember the verse from Genesis:  “God created man in his image, in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them” (1:27).  God’s image is stamped on us.  We belong to him.  To him we have to render our whole lives, our whole selves.  The teaching of Christ, in our case as his disciples, must imbue everything we say and do, wherever and whenever.

God bless you!

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      [1] Matthew Archbold, “Christian College Could Lose Accreditation. Guess Why,” National Catholic Register on-line, Oct. 3, 2014: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/christian-college-could-lose-accreditation.-guess-why/

       [2] Matthew Archbold, “What Happens in Church Stays in Church,” National Catholic Register on-line, Sept. 26, 2014: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/what-happens-in-church-stays-in-church/

Homily for 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
28th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Oct. 12, 2014
Matt 22: 1-14
St. Ursula, Mt. Vernon

“The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son” (Matt 22: 1).

For the 3d Sunday in a row, we hear a parable about the acceptance or rejection of Jesus.  In Matthew’s gospel, these parables come one after the other, and they’re all addressed to “the chief priests and elders of the people” (21:23).  Moreover, they come from Jesus’ teaching in Jerusalem in the last days of his earthly life, at the height of the hostility toward him of these official leaders of the Jews, hostility that will lead to his arrest and execution in a matter of days.

The 1st 2 parables used the image of a vineyard to represent the kingdom of God.  Today Jesus uses a different image, a wedding banquet.  The image of marriage and the image of a banquet both have a long history in the Old Testament.

Marriage symbolizes the relationship between God and Israel.  That symbol carries over into the New Testament, so much that marriage is a sacrament, an outward sign of a profound spiritual reality, viz., God’s love for the human race and his desire for a permanent, intimate union with us.

A banquet might be associated with a wedding but need not be.  We have banquets for birthdays, sports, fundraising, civic and religious occasions, etc.  They’re always associated with festivity and usually with family and some sort of fellowship or social bond, like your recent parish dinner-dance.  The banquet becomes a symbol of eternal life—the festivity and family-belonging of being with God and one another:  “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb,” we say before Communion, and that sacred verse is really an invitation to the Lamb’s wedding banquet, as you see in the original verse in the Book of Revelation (19:9).  Our 1st reading today (Is 25:6-19) and psalm (23) also bring out the theme of a great banquet in the Lord’s house.

Jesus’ parable speaks of the guests originally invited to the wedding banquet of the king’s son—that Son whom we address as the Lamb of God.  In ancient times and even in modern times, a royal wedding and its related celebrations have dynastic overtones.  To refuse to show up for the celebrations implies rejection of the king and his house.  E.g., one of the issues that got Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher into deadly hot water with Henry VIII was their refusal to acknowledge the validity of the king’s marriage to Anne Boleyn.

So the king in the parable, after many of his favored subjects have rejected his rule, either by ignoring his invitation or by outright rebellion, extends his invitation to anyone and everyone:  “invite to the feast whomever you find” (22:9).

St. Matthew seems to be pointing toward the extension of Christianity into the Gentile world.  When we read the Acts of the Apostles, we see several occasions when St. Paul preached Jesus in the synagogs of Asia and Greece.  When most of his audience rejected God’s Word expressed in the life and message of Jesus, Paul would say, “OK, I’ll bring the message of salvation to the Gentiles since you’ve turned it down and they’re eager to hear it.”

Jesus says that the king’s “servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found, bad and good alike” (22:10).  Jesus’ original audiences included “bad and good alike,” and I’m sure that the people to whom the apostles preached in the 1st century did too.  For sure, the Church today is made up of both saints and sinners.  In the gospel 2 Sundays ago (Matt 21:28-32), Jesus explained to the hostile chief priests and elders that “tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (21:31).  Some people with bad reputations, at least, heard Jesus, believed him, and followed him toward eternal life, while those reputed to be good—those chief priests and elders—harassed him and, in collusion with the Roman authorities, crucified him.

Which brings us to this strange piece of the parable about the wedding garment.  Most weddings, as you know, involve fancy dress.  So it was in ancient times, especially among the upper social classes, like the royalty of Jesus’ parable.  What’s implied in the parable, and presumably Jesus’ audience would have known this even tho we, in a very different culture don’t, is that the host of the wedding banquet would supply the necessary garments to guests who needed them.

That understanding casts in its proper light the episode of “a man there not dressed in a wedding garment” (22:11).  This being a parable about the kingdom of heaven, we need to ask what that means.  In St. Paul to the Ephesians, we find an instruction to “put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted thru deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on [like a new garment] the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (4:22-24), and he reminds the Galatians that, having been baptized into Christ, they have been clothed in Christ (3:27).

What this fellow at the wedding banquet has done is come to the banquet—to the kingdom of heaven, or, if you will, to membership in the Church, which is the gateway to that kingdom; to the Eucharistic banquet, which is the foretaste of the heavenly banquet—without clothing himself in Christ Jesus, without accepting and making his own the gospel message, the Christian way of thinking, speaking, and acting.

This parable is also a parable of judgment:  the king judges and condemns his rebellious, murderous subjects, and he judges and condemns the one who pretends to belong to the kingdom but doesn’t behave like a proper citizen.  When the king asks him to account for his unacceptable behavior, he’s speechless.  What excuse will we be able to give the Divine Judge for our sins?  There will be no excuses for those who haven’t repented their sins and clothed themselves in Christ.

Well, this guy gets tossed into the outer darkness—into hell, in plain English—and that’s rather a bummer of an ending for the gospel.  As Jesus says at the end of other parables, “Let him who has ears to hear, hear” (Matt 11:15, etc.).

On the other hand, when “the king came in to meet the guests” (22:11), the banquet hall was full of people who’d been invited in, both good people and bad.  And he found only this one ill-clad guest, only this one who was unrepentant.  Isn’t it good news that so many are invited into God’s kingdom, accept the invitation, and are made welcome?  “Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb”!