On Orientation - 33rd Sunday per annum (OF)

Brethren, we have made it through another presidential election. Our nation prepares for a new president and a new Congress to take office in a few months, whether we agree with them or not. Our first task, as Catholic citizens, is to pray for a good transition and for open minds and hearts among the new administration, so that our Church may flourish and God’s will may be done. We cannot give in to complacency and despair nor should we gloat. There is still a lot of work to be done to proclaim the joyful truth of the Gospel, and the election results must not intrude too greatly upon that work. But there is a second task that we must take up after such a bitter, divisive, emotionally-riddled election; a task which is not necessary merely because of this election, but which is necessary at all times because of our primary calling as Christians, as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Our readings today carry within them a very apocalyptic tone, far more so than any of the most dire predictions being put forward by the media types right now. These readings do not speak of arrests or policy reversals or hatred; they speak of destruction, death, and judgment. They remind us that this world will not endure forever, but that it indeed carries an expiration date. These readings remind us that we need to be oriented towards the true goal of every Christian: not political victory but eternal life. We must be focused upon the end of days.

Orientation carries with it an interesting meaning. Its root word in Latin means the East, which was the easiest direction for ancient people to know due to the rising sun. Whenever we speak of orientation, we usually mean the general direction in which something is travelling or pointing. If we are lost, we speak of reorienting ourselves so as to regain our true direction. Perhaps reorientation is appropriate to how we should be reflecting on these post-election days.

Brothers and sisters, we need to reorient our lives totally and completely to the Lord. We Americans love to play politics and elevate it to a quasi-religion, yet it causes us to lose our true center in God, in Jesus Christ. I do not discourage your political participation, for we are called to live our faith in church and in the public square, but we must keep Christ at the center of our lives, not politics or sports or anything else in this fleeting world. Just as Saint Paul discourages those Thessalonians from being overly concerned with the business of others, so too should we be discouraged from too great a concern on the temporal, the fleeting, the earthly. We must turn to the Lord, the Lord who will be coming very soon.

But how can we regain this spiritual orientation? How can we begin to turn to the Lord? We can begin to do this through returning to a practice that has accommodated the Church in her worship and her prayer from the very beginning. We can begin to reorient ourselves by making Christ the center of our worship. How can this be done? I propose to do this not merely in an interior sense, but in an exterior sense. My proposal is this: beginning on the First Sunday of Advent, we shall celebrate the liturgy here united together and physically turned towards the Lord.

Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have been united together in praying the Mass in a single direction. In fact, the direction usually taken in prayer was to the East, toward the symbol of the rising sun, reminding us of the sun of justice which we heard Malachi foretell in the first reading. The rising sun reminds us of the Lord who has risen from death and will return in the same way as He departed, east of Jerusalem. This idea of unity in posture among the sacred minister and the congregation is not restricted to the Christian religion alone: Muslims will turn to face Mecca while many pious Jews seek during prayer to orient their hearts if not their bodies towards Jerusalem and the east.

I wish us to undertake this united position of worship for a few reasons, the first of which I offer today. We Christians have become increasingly oriented towards the now, something which I believe this election highlights in an extreme way. We too often focus on the here and now, on what we can do here instead of remembering that we are called to be pilgrims on the journey to the eternal Promised Land. We often are like the ancient Israelites wandering through the desert who desire the comforts of Egypt rather than the far more glorious splendors that await the end of the journey. We have lost our true orientation.

But Jesus reminds us of this in our Gospel today when He first foretells the destruction of the physical Temple in Jerusalem, then the great calamities that shall occur at the end of days. The Lord desires to orient us not towards the current reality, which can change in a minute, but towards the eternal realities that shall endure forever. This month is normally dedicated towards a consideration of the last things as they are called: death, judgment, heaven and hell. But we Christians should have these things foremost in our minds: to be prepared for death, to fear being judged against Christ, to hope for heaven and to pray and work to avoid hell.

Our worship should reflect this eternal orientation by having us turn towards the Lord of history, by being watchful for the One who promises that He shall return from the same direction as when He first arrived in this world. Our worship should reinforce the true Christian orientation not towards the petty squabbles of politicians but to the Lord of all time and space, the Lord who shall endure forever, unlike all the nations of the earth. Our worship should have us truly living in the blessed hope of the coming of our Savior, when He shall return to judge the living and the dead and grant to all the faithful eternal life.

I ask for your patience as we begin this change, but I also ask for openness. We should not be afraid of our traditions, even those that we have forgotten, but we should seek the best from the old along with the new. Let us pray that we may be oriented towards Christ more and more each day, not only here in church but in the sum of our lives. Let our hearts become oriented to the true Savior of the nations, the only one who rules the earth with full justice, as we shall celebrate next week. Let us be the pilgrim people of God, journeying not for the fleeting pleasures of this world, but marching eastward, marching towards the Lord, towards the full glory and splendor that awaits the faithful in eternal life.

15th Sunday per annum (OF) - The First Sign of Charity

Today we hear what is one of the most well-known parables of Jesus in the story of the Good Samaritan from the Gospel of Luke. And we’ve probably all heard someone preach ad nauseam about this passage and how we are to show charity to all those around us. That is very true, and I will not deny that some of my homily today will reflect that. However, I would like us to look deeper and see how we begin to live out that charity because we have first received it.

Our Gospel passage opens with a lawyer or a scholar of the Jewish law testing Jesus due to His strange teachings. This scholar of the law tests Jesus to see how well Jesus knows the law, though the man is unaware that he speaks with the one who spoke to Moses and handed that law on to the Israelites. When asked what it takes for one to inherit eternal life, our Lord presents the two central commandments of the law: love of God and love of neighbor. It is the lawyer’s question of who is one’s neighbor that Jesus presents this story of the half-dead traveller, the priest and Levite who avoid him, and the Samaritan who comes to his aid.

The Church Fathers, the great theologians and biblical scholars of the early centuries, see more going on in this story than the most obvious connection. They see this parable as representing the story of the salvation of humanity. The traveller is man who loses paradise and is nearly left dead by his sins. The priest represents the old Mosaic law which, though it was given by God, was not capable of healing humanity’s wounds of sin, and so he passes along, unable to help. The Levite, who represents the prophets, is also incapable of assisting, and so passes on.

If the law and the prophets are not able to aid us in themselves, then who or what can do this? It is the one who is described magnificently in our second reading: Christ Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Jesus is the good Samaritan who comes and heals the traveller - fallen humanity - from his abundance. Jesus calls Himself a Samaritan because He is different from the Jews, though He is born among them. He is different because of His divinity, so wonderfully described by Saint Paul: the creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; the one who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead through His resurrection; the one who is the head of His mystical body, which is the Church; the one through whom all are reconciled via the blood of the cross, so that by His wounds we are healed.

The parable of the Good Samaritan is more than just a nice morality tale to make us love our neighbor, as if Mr. Rogers were the Messiah. This parable is a reminder to us of that charity which we have received from God Almighty, who came among us so as to be our reconciliation with the Father, so as to be the Lamb by whose blood our sins are taken away. Yet the action of reconciliation that is the Cross is not something that merely happened in the past and is something we reflect on in loving memory; it is the way by which Jesus offers the complete observance of the Two Commandments: loving God by being obedient even unto death, death by a cross, and loving one’s neighbor as one’s self, by offering Himself as the spotless Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

And where do we find all of this presented to us not like a photograph, but as the real event offered once more for our benefit? We find this in the Mass, the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross for our adoration, our praise, our glory, and our benefit. As the saying goes, charity begins at home. Every time we come before the altar, we are present at that most seminal act of love God has given us. Every time we enter into the Mass, we are joined with the whole Church - past, present, and to come - to worship at the one true altar and to offer the one perfect sacrifice for our salvation. The Mass is our reminder of the charity we have received from God, the charity that we should, in turn, give to our neighbors, no matter who they are.

My hope as I begin to come into my own here is to make the liturgy echo this far more for each one of us every time we gather at the altar. If we do not get the Mass right, how will we do with the rest of our faith? An old phrase that has passed down through theologians is that the law of prayer animates the law of belief which in turn animates the law of living: as we pray, so we believe, so we do. My vision is to make our celebration of the liturgy as prayerful and conducive to our exercise of the faith as possible. That will involve some changes or differences, some of which you have probably already noticed, some of which will be discussed and presented so as to offer an opportunity for us to learn and appreciate better that which has been given to us by Christ Himself and maintained by the Church up to our own days.

Let us seek, first of all, to make the Mass more a prayer than an act of attendance. To be engaged in the liturgy is not merely to make eternal motions or sounds but to pour forth the desires and needs of the heart and soul towards the only one who can truly satisfy them. The Mass is not a television show which does all the work for us; it is a sacred action in which we have our part just as God has His own part, and we can only be fruitful in our participation at the Mass if we take up our part with joy. Let us also desire to glorify God as best as we can, mindful that it is our first duty as Christians. Only in showing God the glory, the honor, and the love that is due Him can we more clearly realize the glory, the honor, and the love He has for each one of us, so much so that He desires us to share eternal life with Him. Then, once we have a deeper appreciation of the divine love can we go forth and share that same love with all whom we meet, so that others may be drawn to this font of grace and salvation and be as satisfied as we are meant to be. Let us pray that this may be accomplished by us, so that we may each be made worthy to inherit eternal life.

32nd Sunday per annum (OF) - Our True Treasure

You will find on numerous websites which are critical of the Catholic Church images which chastise the Church for the great amount of wealth which She possesses in her sacristies.  This is seen as a reason to oppose the Church in what she teaches and proclaims. “Why don’t you give everything to the poor?” they will demand and label us as hypocrites for supposedly subverting the command of Christ.  How do we respond to this charge?

Some Catholics might agree with this and say that we should give everything away, relieve as much poverty as possible, and remain poor.   I would respond by asking this person why they haven’t done this already if they so believe this to be true.  But beyond the bantering back and forth, why is it that the Church desires fineries for her churches and her sanctuaries?  Why don’t we just focus on relieving poverty?  This is because humanity is not our center of focus, but we are oriented towards God.

The anti-fanciness screed shows a complete misunderstanding of which direction we are looking as Catholics.  The Catholic Church’s mission is to be the vessel of salvation for humanity.  This certainly involves aiding the poor, since Jesus shows us that we are serving Him well in caring for those who are without.  But the Church aids the poor so as to help them to gain the wealth of the kingdom of Heaven.  The ultimate goal of every activity of the Church is to bring the people to God and to bring God to the people.  Our Holy Father has often talked about this, saying that the Church is not a non-government organization, but the body of Christ.

What does all this have to do with what we have heard today?  It is the attitude of the widow of Zarephath and the widow of the Gospel which we should emulate in our own lives.  Both women are poor, poor to the point of death.  They have only enough to keep themselves alive for a day or two.  Yet each of them puts their faith and their hope in God.  The widow of Zarephath hopes that God will act through the prophet Elijah, while the widow of the Gospel hopes that God will soon come to save His people, perhaps not knowing that this same God was proclaiming the sanctity of her offering.

Jesus praises this widow due to her hope in God while lambasting the Pharisees and their self-centered giving and obsession with human praise.  We are reminded by this Gospel that we are not truly wealthy, whether we have money or not, but that we are poor, that the whole species of humanity is poor due to its misuse of the initial gift of wealth given by God to our first parents.  Saint Paul elaborates on this theme, declaring that “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).

Our two widows today get this, each in their own way.  Jesus makes us rich not in monetary wealth (always beware a preacher who tells you that faith will make you rich).  Jesus pours down onto us the spiritual wealth of becoming the children of God and the heirs to the kingdom of Heaven.  We are given the richness which comes from possessing God Himself, who is the greatest and only enduring treasure that can be found.  Nothing else can satisfy the heart so much as having God as our one true possession.

This is why we seek to build magnificent churches and cathedrals, why we use gold and silver and silk and lace to decorate our altars, why we have paintings and statues and frescoes in our various buildings.  All of this is meant to show the wealth of God which is ours.  It is meant to orient us not towards the pursuit of money or fame or power, but to the pursuit of God.  Those who criticize the Church for her wealth do not believe in this eternal treasure but think that we can only find treasure here and now.  They are like the Pharisees who seek not to find God in their wealth or their offices, but instead desire to possess the treasure of human praise.

We also see in our second reading one last hint at this desire for beauty and finery in our churches.  The Apostle has been describing throughout this section and the previous sections of Hebrews how Christ is the High Priest who offers the one perfect sacrifice.  He tells us now that Jesus enters not into an earthly temple, but into the eternal Temple of God which is Heaven.  The Apostle shows us that what we do here in this church previews or prepares us for the eternal liturgy of Heaven.  Saint John in the book of Revelation describes Heaven as the wedding banquet of the Lamb to His Bride which is seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the Mass.  This means that we are previewing in this place what we hope to see in Heaven.

If this is true, then we should certainly do everything we can to beautify every aspect of the liturgy.  This is why we built such magnificent churches, why we gild everything pertaining to the sacred gifts, why we have sought the best of every art: we are trying to make all of this as beautiful as Heaven!  This is what is at the heart of the Gospel message - not merely some unity of men and women for a common purpose like golf or bridge or bingo, but a communion of persons with God in a shadowy sense here and now and in a real sense in the life to come.  The Mass is meant to be Heaven come down to earth.

Let us, then, seek to be oriented towards God our true treasure.  Let us seek to do everything we can to make this church reflect, as best as we can, the glories of the heavenly wedding feast.  We may not be a cathedral or a rich parish, but we can still do our best to make this the best it can be.  But let us also be mindful that this treasure is not meant for just us alone.  We must share this with others so that they may also become rich through their union with Christ.  A church that only focuses on itself does not grow or flourish.  Let us do our part to proclaim the treasures of the Gospel to our neighbors and help them to receive it for themselves, most especially the poor and the downtrodden, those who especially remembered by Our Lord.  May we have the faith and the hope of the two widows today to believe and trust in God’s mercy and His goodness for us now and for all eternity.