Category: Homily

Besides, you know the time in which we are living. lt is now the hour for you to wake from sleep, for our salvation is closer than when we first accepted the faith. 12 The night is far spent; the day draws near. So let us cast off deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us live honorably as in daylight, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual excess and lust, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with our Savior Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the night. (Romans 13:11-14) Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible . Sheed & Ward. Kindle Edition.

During this time of year, draped in darkness, and a hardened blanket of cold snow and ice, we, as human beings long for sunlight and warmth. If you live in Minnesota, in which we are horribly Vitamin D deficient, we find ourselves slowly slogging through the cold and snow, cursing the darkness and the season of winter. This passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, from the scriptural readings for the First Sunday in Advent, is particularly pointed to us.

Advent is a time in which we long for the light of Jesus’ Second Coming as we remember the long wait of our Hebrew ancestors longing for the light of the Messiah’s First Coming. Paul’s prediction of Christ’s second coming was rather premature. Paul thought that the second coming of Jesus would be within a short amount of time, even advising his Christian communities to forego getting married and having children. While Paul was correct in many things, his eschatology (the study of the end times) was incorrect, for we have been living in the eschaton (the end times) for a very, very long time. Like our Hebrew ancestors, we have been waiting a long, long time for Jesus to come again.

There is a wonderful book on Celtic Spirituality written by John O’Donohue entitled, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. John O’Donohue writes in the third chapter of his book these wonderful words. “The eternal is not elsewhere; it is not distant. There is nothing as near as the eternal. This is captured in a lovely Celtic phrase: “Tá tír na n-óg ar chul an tí—tír álainn trina chéile”—that is, “The land of eternal youth is behind the house, a beautiful land fluent within itself.” The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused. The beautiful Gaelic phrase fighte fuaighte, “woven into and through each other,” captures this.” (O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom . HarperCollins.)

Applying  the spiritual wisdom of the Celts to the words that Paul writes to the Roman Christian community is that just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come again is a waste of time. We must live in a way that realizes that Jesus’ Second Coming has already come. The Reign of God is all around us. To borrow that wonderful Celtic image, the Reign of God is “woven into and through us and each other.”

Rather than living lives awaiting Jesus as those” thrown bound into darkness gnashing our teeth” (a vivid  image Jesus uses in the Gospels), we must live differently because Jesus is very much living in the here and now among us.

Some try to escape the darkness and cold of this time of year in pursuing activities listed at the end of Paul’s scriptural passage today. Paul was very much aware of the Roman Bacchanalias  celebrated during the winter solstice wherein people engaged in self-indulgent activities filled with the abusing of alcohol and sexually abusing others. Paul warns his Christian community to stay away from such activities primarily because such activity is contrary to Christ’s self-giving commandment of love to “love one another as I have loved you.”  Rather, in living in the “here and now” of Emmanuel, “God among us”, we must live lives modeled on that of Jesus.

John O’Donohue quotes a Celtic morning prayer that best describes what it is to live in the light of Christ at this darkest time of year.
“I arise today through the strength of heaven, light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.” (O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

In closing, as we enter into this Season of Advent, let us invite the light of Christ into our soul to guide us through these darkest hours of the year. May this Celtic blessing be our guide throughout these Advent weeks to Christmas and beyond.

“May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work you do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light, and renewal to those who work with you and to those who see and receive your work. May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration, and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams, possibilities, and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered, and protected.
May your soul calm, console, and renew you.” (O’Donohue, John. Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)

REFLECTION ON THE 23^RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR C

Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 25-26, NAB)

When we read these words, we might think initially that Jesus is just plain sadistic if not out and out crazy. Who goes around telling people that they must hate their families, hate their own children, if they are to be a disciple of Jesus? Is this the same Jesus in another Gospel who says to let the little children come to me and don’t hinder them? Is this the same Jesus in this very Gospel who tells the parable of the Prodigal Son? How do many of the sentiments that Jesus speaks elsewhere make sense with what he is saying today?

Context is everything, hence, the danger of taking any words out of context. Jesus is speaking metaphorically, not literally, of course. What Jesus is driving home to his audience is to what level of commitment they are prepared to make in order to be his disciple. He is asking them if they are prepared to abandon everything in order to follow him. Discipleship is not just a whim, Jesus says, it is an utter change in one’s life. It truly is an “all or nothing” commitment.

As human beings, we often sum up who a person is by what she/he owns. Look at the amount of prestige that is attached to people who own the finest cars, the most luxurious homes, who eat at the finest restaurants, and travel to exotic places. Our newspapers, our magazines are filled with stories about “those people” who have all these things. Jesus would look at all that opulence, all that wealth, and declare it a great burden to carry in life. All the “stuff” that we own does not ease our lives, but rather burdens our lives for the simple reason we have to “take care” of that stuff. We have to mind that stuff, and protect our stuff, store that stuff, provide for that stuff in order to keep it. “The stuff” of our lives does not free us, rather, it weighs us down and prevents us from having the freedom needed to follow him as his disciple.

Anyone who has any moral fiber would readily attest that people and relationships are not commodities to be owned or controlled. Only perpetrators of domestic violence, slave owners, and the like would consider people, including their own families, as commodities, things to be used and abused. However, most of us place a very high value on our attachment to our families. They are important. What wouldn’t we do to alleviate the suffering of one of our children? We would do everything we could, right? To be a disciple of Jesus, Jesus is asking us for a level of commitment that is even higher than our commitment to our family. If we are truly committed to be a disciple of Jesus, we must be ready for a commitment greater than we hold to our parents, our spouse, and our children. There is a story about Francis of Assisi that illustrates this very well.

Francis came from a very wealthy family. His father was a successful merchant of the finest clothes. He was very disappointed when Francis showed no interest in running the family merchant business. His son, Francis, had become this religious nut, trying to rebuild an abandon ruin of a chapel in the middle of no where, begging for food, becoming, what many of us would consider, a bum, a ne’er do well . On top of it, Francis was taking his father’s clothing merchandise and selling it so that he could give the proceeds of the sales to the poor.

His father had had enough and decided to confront his son in public in the middle of Assisi. In a very crowded square, Francis’ father confronted him, cursed him, and disowned him. In front of his father and the whole citizenry, Francis strips off all his clothing and stands naked and declares that he had only one father, and that was God the Father. Francis then put on the clothes of a beggar and began to live a life of Gospel poverty.

A major part of Francis’ rule of life was to not own anything. He reasoned that if he didn’t own anything, there was nothing he had that thieves would want. He didn’t have to protect anything he didn’t own. He did not have to take care of property he didn’t have. Not owning anything, he had complete freedom to follow Jesus and to live a life devoted to the Gospel. As this way of life grew and others joined him, he made it clear that his religious order would NOT own property. They rented the place in which they lived for a bushel of fish a year. They went door to door begging for food, or ate the discarded food in the garbage. They begged for money to support their ministry.

Francis and his new religious order accomplished much in those early years, and the order grew in number. Francis may not have owned any material things, but he did own one thing, his religious order. Toward the end of his life, he was asked to give up this one last possession, the control he had over this religious order. His religious order had become “his family”. He was asked to let go of his control, to let his family go. This was very difficult for him to do. Francis placed God first. Francis placed his discipleship to Jesus first, and let go of his religious order.

This is the level of commitment to discipleship that Jesus is calling on us to make today. Are we prepared to make the sacrifice of letting go of everything in order to follow him? Are we prepared to take up our cross and follow Jesus? If we are not, we are not ready to be disciples of Jesus.

This weekend, in all three church sites of the New Prague Area Catholic Community, we are celebrating the harvest during Mass. This coincides with the readings of this Sunday being the most eschatological/ the End of the World readings. I am preaching at two of the Masses and the following is the homily I will be giving.

HOMILY FOR THE 33^RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B

I want to first express my great gratitude for all the hard work and sacrifice you do to provide myself, my family, and all of the world with the food we need in order to live. I personally know about farming through relationship, that is in having the great honor and privilege of courting and marrying a farmer’s daughter. Needless to say, I have had my share of bailing hay and stacking hay bales in the barn. I often thought her dad tied our visits to the farm to correspond with the cutting and bailing of alfalfa. I will be the first to admit that all of you can speak far more eloquently about the tremendous amount of work and skill it takes to plant and to harvest crops, and to care for livestock.

As a city slicker, I have observed that the two busiest and most important times in the year are the times of planting and harvesting. Prior to planting, great care is taken to prepare the soil, fertilizing the soil, and, then, planting the seeds. The time in between planting and harvesting is spent in caring for livestock, and handing over control of the crops planted to God. Much prayer is offered for the correct amount of rain, sunshine, humidity, and the absence of storms that can destroy a crop. This is a time best thought of as God’s time. St James, in chapter 5 of his apostolic letter, writes, “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.” And, following comes the time we have just completed the harvest. An equal amount of care goes into preparing and repairing the machinery that will be used for the harvest, prayer offered up for dry weather, prayer that all will remain safe during the long hours of the harvest, that machinery will not break down, that the crop can be stored safely in bins and silos, and that a good price may be had for the crop. Scripture calls the time between planting and harvesting as the time that belongs especially to God. Once all that has been done, then we can give thanks to God and relax.

The scriptures today, also talk about harvest. The theological word used to describe God’s harvest is the word, “Eschaton”. It means the “end times” or the “end of the world.” Truth be told, we have been living in the end times, harvest time, from the moment Jesus ascended into heaven. While there will be one, final great harvest, the harvest has been going on from the moment we were born. In the Divine Harvest, it is you and I who are the crop. Our lives are the seed that God has planted. God planted us in the soil of this world the moment we were born. The soil in which we are planted is the soil of our family, and the soil of our community. Our lives are fertilized by the knowledge we acquire in school, in the skills we have learned, the life experiences and events that occur in our lives, and the choices we make in our lives. God waters us with the life of his Son, Jesus and with the sacraments, and then, like all farmers, patiently watches us grow, hoping that our lives will bear great fruit. ”What kind of fruit will our lives bear?”  We have the choice of either bearing great fruit or no fruit at all. And then, after a lifetime of growing in the soil of this world, you and I will be harvested by God.

So just what does it mean to bear great fruit? It is quite simple. Our fruit will be determined by how we have we loved throughout our lives. Two weeks ago, Jesus gave us the definition of what it means to bear great fruit. It is to love God with all our heart, strength, and mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to love as Jesus loved, completely and unequivocally, just like the story of the widow from the gospel last week, who gave all she had to God. How do we love God with all our heart, our strength, and our mind? What role does prayer play in our daily lives? Do we spend time in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening giving thanks to God for the blessings of our day? Do we spend time reading Holy Scripture? Do we faithfully spend time with God on Sunday, at this great celebration of thanksgiving we call the Mass? Prayer and celebrating the sacraments are all big ways in which our lives bear great fruit. However, that is not enough. If our prayer and celebration of the sacraments are bearing great fruit in our lives, it will show in how we love the presence of God in our neighbor. In Matthew’s Gospel, the Last Judgment is all about how people have loved the presence of God in others. Jesus asks those being judged, “Have you fed the hungry? Have you given drink to the thirsty? Have you clothed the naked? Have you cared for the sick? Have you visited those in prison? Have you welcomed the stranger, the immigrant?” Jesus tells us that if we have done all these acts of love for others, our lives have borne great fruit and we will have eternal life. If we have not done so, then we will be condemned for eternity. Jesus reminds us that just as the farmer separates the wheat from the chaff, so God will separate those who love from those who do not love. In John’s Gospel, Jesus describes this in terms of him being the vine and we being the branches. Those branches that bear great fruit are saved. The branches that bear no fruit at all are cut off and thrown into the fire.

The sole purpose of planting seeds, watching them grow, and then harvesting them, is to provide life and sustenance for all. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The sole goal of our lives is to learn how to love as Jesus loved, and then love as Jesus loved. Jesus said it quite simply and accurately, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  If we do this, then we bring Christ’s life to our world. This weekend is a good time to pause from the busyness of our lives and reflect on the fruit our lives have produced.  Have we produced great fruit, our have our lives been fruitless?

HOMILY FOR THE 29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR B

Imagine for a moment sitting elbow to elbow with many people around a very long table. You are extremely hungry, and placed right in front of you is a plate heaped with all your favorite food. The only problem is that you can’t feed yourself because your fork, knife and spoon are over 2 feet long and there is no way for you to get the food into your mouth using your own fork, knife and spoon (and, no, you cannot use your fingers). What do you do?
This is a scenario used to illustrate the difference between heaven and hell. In both heaven and hell, very hungry people sit crammed next to each other around a very long table. There favorite food is heaped on the plate in front of them, but they cannot feed themselves because the fork, knife and spoon are too long. In hell, everyone remains miserable and hungry because they can’t feed themselves. In heaven, everyone is happy and well fed because they used their forks, knives, and spoons to feed the person sitting on the other side of the table. In hell, the self-centeredness and greed of Original Sin infects and starves those infected. In heaven, the effect of Original Sin is overcome as people serve one another.

The guiding principle of Original Sin is encapsulated in the phrase, “What’s in it for me?” We see this played out in our politics, in our economy, in people’s involvement in their community, in their schools, and in even their churches. The words self-sacrifice and commitment to others or the greater good that once was the hallmark of our nation, has now been replaced by self-service and self-advancement at the expense of the common good of all.

In today’s readings, we hear Jesus declare that our present lifestyle of self-centeredness and greed is contrary to what God intended for humanity. In the Gospel, James and John place on display for us their own tendency to be self-centered and greedy. Believing that Jesus was going to create a political dynasty, they wanted in on the action. They wanted the highest positions in Jesus’ dynasty. When the other 10 apostles hear this, they get angry. Why? They want to get in on the action, too. Jesus then addresses the infection of self-centeredness and greed in his apostles. He tells them, “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus is not only addressing the self-centeredness and greed present in his apostles, he is challenging them to confront the intent of their discipleship. Is the reason they are following Jesus based solely on the hope to possess positions of power and wealth in the dynasty they believe that Jesus will establish? What are the reasons that they have given up everything and are following Jesus?

Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus modeled for us what God had intended for humanity from the very beginning, namely, to live lives of loving service to one another. The writer to the Hebrews expresses it this way, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.” Jesus was tested many times to think of and place himself before others, but born without Original Sin, he was never infected with the self-centeredness and greed from which we all seem to suffer. This is demonstrated for us most vividly during the liturgies of Holy Week.

On Holy Thursday night, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Curiously, the Gospel for Holy Thursday is not about the Paschal meal we hear about in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel for that night is from John. John focuses the Last Supper not on the Eucharist, but on Jesus washing the feet of his apostles. The very one through whom all creation came forth, gets down on his knees and washes the feet of those he created. After he is done, Jesus says to them, ““Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

This Gospel had a tremendous impact on St Francis of Assisi. St Francis saw that from the very moment of Jesus’ incarnation, Jesus’ life was spent giving and sacrificing himself to those he had created. All the miracles he worked, all that he suffered was always done out of love for the humanity he had created. St Francis observed that when Jesus had nothing else left to give us, he gave to us his very last possession, that being his last breath as he died on the cross.

Today Jesus asks us to examine the intent behind the actions, both bad and good that we do. When we do good things for others is the intent behind that good action, self-glorification, or recognition? Or, are the things we do for others based on genuine love?

The positive thing we can take away from our readings today is that we are not doomed to succumb to the self-centeredness and greed that infects our world. Look at the saints displayed in our stain glass windows and our statues here in church. This is our church family photo album. These people didn’t buy their sainthood through money and power. These people didn’t manipulate others in order to become saints. How did they become saints? They modeled their lives after the life of Jesus, their Savior. They killed the infection of self-centeredness and greed of Original Sin in their lives with the antibiotic of placing God and others first in their lives. They got down on their knees and humbly washed the feet of others. And, like Jesus, offered up their last breath in service of God and others.
“Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.” Jesus presents us with a choice to make. Using the opening scenario, we can choose to be among the damned and be miserable and starving by refusing to serve those around us at the table, or, choose to be among the saved, happy and well fed, by taking our long forks, knives, and spoons, and feeding the person those around us.

In the baptismal ritual, there is a small rite called the Ephphetha Rite in which the priest or deacon touches the ears and the mouth of the one being baptized and says, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the mute speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father.”

The word upon which we need to focus in the scriptures this Sunday, are the words of Jesus, “Ephphatha!” “Be Opened!”, and the words of Isaiah, “Be strong, fear not!” For our eyes, our ears, our mouths, and, most importantly, our hearts to be opened, we must remain strong and free from fear.

We live in a world consumed in fear. The overriding message of “Be afraid!” assails us day after day on the radio, television and all forms of social media. Fear can paralyze us. Fear will eventually destroy us. I remember a woman coming to me for spiritual direction after 911 who was so fearful that terrorists were going to kill her, she found it near impossible to leave her home to go to church.

Fear prevents us from opening our lives to the freedom of seeing what God wants us to see, to hear what God wants us to hear, to love as God wants us to love. God calls us to let go of these fears that inhibit our growing as disciples of Jesus. Isaiah calls to us from the past telling us that we need not fear because God comes with vindication, God comes to save us.

Often when we think about ghettos, we think of large groups of people living in big urban cities. However, this is an untruth. It matters not where we live, whether it be a rural area, small town, suburbia, or big urban centers, we often find ourselves living in ghettos of our own making. We live in our ghettos because the world outside them is seen as a bad and frightening place. Truth be told, many of our fears are unfounded and largely products of our own imagination.

To open our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our hearts require us to leave the false security and comfort of our ghettos and trust that God will be there to lead us and keep us safe. I remember on July 3rd of 2004 when I received a call from the Chancery. I was told that the Archbishop was reassigning me from St Hubert in suburban Chanhassen parish of 3200 households to be the parish administrator of St Stephen in South Minneapolis. The Archbishop could not find a priest who was willing to be the pastor for the parish. I had served 9 years in a small town parish, and now 20 years in a large suburban parish. Moving my ministry to St Stephen’s was a huge leap out of my comfort zone into something totally unknown to me.

I found St Stephen’s to be a very diverse congregation of disenfranchised people, many of whom were poor, gay and lesbian, ex-priests, ex-nuns, former convicts, the homeless, the developmentally disabled, Ecuadorian and Mexicans, and many people who had been or were broken spiritually, emotionally and physically. We hear in the reading from St James, “Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?” These words of St James’ became so vivid as I sat and talked with, listened to the stories of my parishioners. I found that what I had in common with them was far more than that of our differences. Considering much of what they had experienced in life, their courage to persevere was nothing short of courageous and their faith in God extraordinary. They helped me to see the vulnerabilities in my own life and my own great dependence on God.

When we let go of our fears, we will find our eyes, our ears, our mouths, and our hearts opened up to the presence of God in one another. We find that the homeless man that looks so scary begging for a few dollars at an off ramp, is really a war veteran whose soul was torn asunder when he or she was in combat. Having experienced the horror of combat, he or she could not return to normal civilian life. In the rectory of St Stephens is the parish homeless shelter that sleeps 44 men a night, many of whom I found were Vietnam war veterans suffering from severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

There was one homeless man with whom I did spiritual direction who believed that Homeland Security implanted a device in his head and was monitoring everything he said and everywhere he went. He would look nervously out the window at a parked pickup truck on the street and tell me it was someone from the government following him. He didn’t need me to tell him that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and that he should be taking his medications. He needed me to listen to his story. He needed me to see the world through his eyes. I asked him how he coped knowing that his every word and every movement was being scrutinized by the government. Then, I asked him this question, “Where do you find God in all your suffering?” He answered me saying that he firmly believed that God had a plan for him. It was his need to come to know and live God’s plan that prevented him from jumping to his death off the 3rd Ave bridge into the Mississippi River. As our visit ended, I asked him where he lived. He replied, “I live in a storage shelter. It’s not bad living there, but the woman who lives in the storage shelter next to me is crazy.”

Today, Jesus touches our ears, our mouth, our eyes, and our hearts and commands them to be opened. When we trust in God’s power and protection and let go of our fears, we will find ourselves rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that Jesus promises to those who love him.

Back on July 29th, we began John’s account of the feeding of the 5000. Scripture scholars tell us that unlike the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, in which Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, in the Gospel of John, Jesus institutes the Eucharist at the feeding of the 5000. Jesus takes the barley loaves, gives thanks to God, breaks them, then multiplies the loaves and the fish and has the apostles distribute the food to the 5000 people who were there. What has followed these past weekends in the Gospel is Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist.

If we have listened carefully over the past 4 weeks, the consistent theme Jesus preaches to the crowd is that if they want everlasting life, they must eat his Body and drink his Blood. The crowd is struggling with what Jesus is saying. “How can this be?” they ask. “We know his mom and dad. (factiously) He played shortstop on our baseball team. Now he is telling us that if we want everlasting life we must eat his Body and drink his Blood? How can this be?” We can observe this scene from the year 2018 and criticize the crowd for their disbelief in Jesus. However, if we are to be honest with ourselves, sometime in our life, we, too, have questioned the real presence of Jesus in the holy communion we receive at Mass.

I remember the time I asked the question, “How can this be?” I was 12 years old and at the weekly school Mass at St Peter and St Paul school, when I questioned the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Like all entering adolescence, I began questioning a lot of what had been taught me. I was not just boing to believe because someone told me to believe. I had to own the belief. The question I asked myself that day at Mass was, “Is the Body and Blood of Jesus really in the host, or have I been told a fairy tale all these years?” I was just like the crowd that said to Jesus two weeks ago in the Gospel, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do?” Or, like the apostle Thomas, who doubted the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I, too, would have insisted upon putting my finger into the nail holes of his hands and feet, and my fist in the wound in his side. I adopted what could be best described as a “let’s wait and see if this is all true” way of evaluating what was true and what was not. While I did not fully understand what I received when I went to Holy Communion, I, instinctively knew it was important for me, so I kept going to Mass on Sunday. Secondarily, I also knew that my mom and dad would kill me if I didn’t go to Mass on Sunday.

In the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy, the Church teaches that the Eucharist is the font from which all grace pours forth into the world. When we celebrate Mass the grace pours from this Mass into our lives, and we take that grace out into the world. The Church teaches that in our celebration of the Mass and in our receiving Holy Communion, the brokenness of our lives is healed, our sins are forgiven, and we are empowered to go forth and be the Body of Christ in our world. Though I was not aware of it at the time, as I look back on my questioning youth, I can see the power of the Eucharist working in my life. How my faithful attendance at Mass and receiving Holy Communion helped to shape my life into becoming a better person, and, assisted me in making the good choices I might not have made on my own.

We hear Jesus telling us in the Gospel today, “Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me.” We hear in the Book of Wisdom, “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed! Forsake foolishness that you may live; advance in the way of understanding.” The Eucharist is our spiritual food. The grace we receive at Mass assists us in navigating the complexities and the difficulties of our life. Why would we ever choose to starve ourselves spiritually? Why would we choose to be spiritually anorexic?

There is no more powerful sign of the life that Jesus gives us in holy communion than that of giving Holy Communion to those who are sick and to those who are dying. I see a hunger for the Eucharist when I go and visit those who are homebound. As they receive Holy Communion, a peaceful calm comes over them as they are joined in communion with the God who created them. Even though those who suffer from dementia, know at that moment when they receive Holy Communion, it is Jesus they receive. For that instant, the presence of their Savior clears away, momentarily, the confusion in their minds. It was not by accident that over 60 years ago, the Church restored Viaticum as the Last Rites of the dying. Viaticum means “food for the journey.” Those who are dying do not need the anointing of the sick because they are dying. What they need is the food sent down from heaven, the Body and Blood of Jesus, as they transition from this life into the fullness of life.

This great teaching on the Eucharist in the Gospel of John concludes next weekend. We will find people making a choice. Many of those who followed Jesus, who ate the loaves and the fish, will walk away from him unable or unwilling to wrestle with this teaching of Jesus. Jesus will then turn to his apostles and ask them what they choose to do.

I encourage you, throughout this week, to reflect on when you owned the belief of Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist and what compels you to come every Sunday to Mass and be fed at the table of the Lord.

My mother at the age of 3 years, Pittsburgh Pa.

Today was the funeral of my mother, Regina Wagner. The time of her death on Saturday, June 30th at 1:57 am, to right now has been filled with a tremendous amount of activity and planning. It has been filled with enormous upheavals of emotion as my inner child cries because my mother has died, and the deacon in me tries to console my inner child with assurances of faith and trust in God. While I have known from the time Ruthie and I became grandparents that we were no longer “the kids”, the death of Ruthie’s mom, and the death of my dad and now my mother have really hammered that concept home. As I did at the deaths of my sister and my father, I assisted at Mass and preached at the funeral of my mother. It was my last gesture of love to the woman who had loved me into existence and cared for me all these years. What follows is the gospel I proclaimed and the homily I gave on the life of my mother.

  Mom as a freshman in college.

GOSPEL
Luke 1:46-55

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke

Mary said:
“My soul proclaims your greatness, my Lord;
my spirit rejoices in you, my God, my savior.
For you have looked upon your handmaid’s lowliness;
behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.
You, the Mighty One have done great things for me,
and holy is your name.
Your mercy is from age to age
to those who fear you.
You have shown might with your arm,
dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart
You have thrown down the rulers from their thrones
but lifted up the lowly.
The hungry you have filled with good things;
the rich you have sent away empty.
You have helped Israel your servant,
remembering your mercy,
according to your promise to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Me, Dad, Bill, Mom and Mary Ruth

HOMILY FOR MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL
You may have noticed that the gospel I chose for my mother sounded a little different. Whenever we hear this beautiful prayer in the Gospel of Luke, Mary refers to God in the third person. I changed the tense from the word “him” to the word “you”. I did this for a good reason.

For my mother, God was not some transcendent being in a galaxy far, far away. Rather, God was always immanently close to her. Her relationship with God was so personal, so close that when she prayed it was as if she was carrying on this intimate conversation with God sitting in a chair right next to her. I could see this whenever I gave her holy communion. She would grow silent, in a way, distant from me, as she communed with the God inside her. The words from the hymn, “You Are Near”, speak volumes about my mother’s relationship with God, “Yahweh, I know you are near; standing always at my side. You guard me from the foe, and you lead me in ways everlasting.”

One might think that my mother’s intimate relationship with God provided for her a life free from all care and pain. On the contrary, her life was one filled with hardship and tragedy. Her mother and her little sister died 2 weeks apart when my mom was 12 years of age. Her dad died when she was 25 years old. My sister, Mary Ruth, died at the age of 42 years in 1997. My dad died in 2004. All her remaining brothers and sisters have died in the past 16 or so years. With all this death in her life one would think she would have shaken her fist at the heavens and cursed God. But God’s presence was so deep within my mother, that instead of cursing God, she chose to fall trustingly into that deep embrace that God holds out for all who mourn.

As mom’s stay at Mala Strana grew longer and her dementia grew, she would often talk about the activities in which she was involved as school classes. She often referred to the staff as the teachers or nuns. While perhaps unintentional, mom hit upon a very important metaphor that I think applies to all our lives. Classes are not only confined to those years when we are in school. Rather our entire life is an active class of learning how to love as God loves. Our lives are our opportunity to learn how to live fully the great Commandment that Jesus taught us, namely, to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

My mother’s life was one long, beautiful lesson on how to lovingly live out the Great Commandment. Her love and devotion to God was evident in her faithful worship of God at Mass on Sunday, and in her daily personal prayer life. Her love and worship of God was also present in the love she poured out not only for myself, and my brother Bill and my sister Mary, but for the stranger and those who were greatly in need. She saw her faith and her life as a tremendous gift of God that must be shared with others, especially those who lacked loved and felt despair and want in their lives.

She learned this from her parents. My grandfather, Oscar, whose position at the steel mill afforded him a larger salary, would use that extra money so that he could buy food to share with those who were hungry. My grandmother, Mary, would prepare the food and send him down to the mill to distribute that food to the hungry and needy. After her mother and little sister died, my mom and her older sister, Ruth, took on the work of caring for and feeding their younger brothers while my grandfather was at work. Upon graduating from Mount Mercy College, my mother initially taught home economics in the ghettos of Pittsburgh, teaching poor girls how to cook and make their own clothes.

This pattern of giving of herself in love and service to others continued throughout her professional career and when she met my dad, she found a man who was as giving as herself in love and service to others. (Though before marrying mom, dad did have to get past the test with Fr Coglin, the old Irish pastor at St Rosalia Church. After her father died, Fr Coglin took on the responsibility of screening those whom my mother dated. Not just any guy was going to marry Queenie. He had to be special.) With such great examples of servanthood in my family, is it any wonder I became a deacon of the church?
One would think that spending her remaining days in a nursing home would be a cruel downturn to a life faithfully lived. Far from the contrary, mom saw it as an opportunity to continue what she always did only in a different place. She would tell me that her mission was to help the “new kids” coming to Mala Strana adjust, to help them feel welcome and at home. That was one of the reasons she didn’t spend a whole lot of time in her room. She was always peddling around in her wheel chair seeking out those having a bad day in the hope of making them feel a little better. What one experienced at Mala Strana was the quintessential mother I have always known and loved.

I will end with one anecdote about the time when I was in third grade. At the beginning of my 3rd grade year, my teacher, Mrs. Hunnsiger, became pregnant and had to spend the majority of her pregnancy in bedrest. The long term replacement for my 3rd grade teacher was my mother. I was in a bit of a quandary in that I didn’t know whether to call her mom, or call her Mrs Wagner while in school. (I ended up calling her mom.) What I didn’t know was that for the 8 months she taught, she didn’t receive any salary at her own insistence. She was so grateful to have had a college education at a time when so few women had that opportunity, that the gift of education she received from God had to be shared freely with others. She never said anything about teaching a whole school year for free to anyone. It was only years later when it became known at a college reunion when the president of the college read a letter written by Monsignor Doherty who was pastor at St Andrew’s the year my mother substitute taught my 3rd grade class. He said, he had never seen such a living example of the faith and love that Jesus taught in the Gospels as he did in my mother. I agree.

I am so grateful that at on June 30th at 1:57 am, she heard the God she loved so much say to her,

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through the water,
I will be with you;
in the rivers you shall not drown.
When you walk through fire,
you shall not be burned;
the flames shall not consume you.
For I am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your savior.
Because you are precious in my eyes and glorious,
and because I love you.”

Mom with her great grandsons Owen and Ollie