Homily–5th Sunday of Lent–“Fear of the Lord”

Matthew 21:1-11

Isaiah 50:4-7

Philippians 2:62

Matthew 26:14-27:66

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What emotion do we fear the most?  

What one human emotion terrifies most people?

According to the research of Dr. Brenè Brown of Ted-X fame the most feared emotion in today’s culture is grief.  We fear grief more than anything else.

  
          Fear of grief isn’t just the grief we experience over the death of a loved one or friend, it’s also the grief we experience over the death of a part of ourselves that may be holding us back spiritually.

Dr. Brown says the fear of grief is the reason why forgiveness of others is so hard. 

When we live into the truth of Jesus, we come to understand that in order for forgiveness to happen something has to die.

Our pride has to die. Our self-righteousness has to die. Our anger with others has to die. Our expectations of a loved one or a friend have to die.  Our pain has to die. 

What’s that old saying, “Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” 

Human transformation comes from looking our grief directly in the eye and becoming transformed by it.  But as we know from personal experience, dealing with grief is no easy task. 

In today’s long Gospel reading of the death of Christ, we see two ways of dealing with grief.  One way is to run away. The other way is to face the grief head on.

Notice how Mary Magdalene and the other Marys (and we know from other Gospels this includes the Virgin Mary), notice how these Marys follow Jesus to the foot of the cross, experiencing every grief-stricken moment?  The Apostle John was also there.

The only fear these disciples have is fear of the Lord, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  

Fear of the Lord is what the Prophet Isaiah called the “Lord’s delight.”

“Fear of the Lord” refers to a sense of awe, respect, and submission to God. Our actions in this life become holy because of it. 

These Marys and John don’t fear grief (or run away from it), they bravely accept the grief of this life-shattering moment. Perhaps they were heeding Jesus’ lesson of patient suffering. Perhaps they believed in Jesus’ promise of something better to come. Perhaps they hoped death would not end the story.

Pope St. Gregory the Great reminds us of what Proverbs says about fear of the Lord -- that it is the beginning of knowledge. 

“Through the fear of the Lord, we rise to piety, from piety then to knowledge, from knowledge we derive (fortitude), from (fortitude) counsel, with counsel we move toward understanding, and with (understanding) toward wisdom and thus, by the sevenfold grace of the (Holy) Spirit, there opens to us at the end of the ascent the entrance to the life of Heaven” 

But all these gifts would not come to us without the mercy of God at play in our lives. 

Author and Seattle homeless street chaplain Reverend Craig Rennebohm wrote these powerful words about the healing gift of God’s mercy:

“Mercy is a primary gift of the spirit. Mercy nurtures reconciliation and renewal in our lives. Mercy touches the hurt in our lives. Mercy reaches out and embraces our feelings of shame and embarrassment. Mercy acknowledges our grief and our guilt. Mercy tempers judgment with wisdom and understanding. Mercy expresses the love of God, gentle beyond all measure and yet of such strength that nothing can separate us or negate our lives and worth. Mercy flows from the compassion of God. God’s heart is touched by our struggles, more deeply than we can imagine. God feels our every pain, suffers with us, and holds our lives as treasured. In God’s care our souls have eternal value.”   

So as we enter Holy Week, may we face the death of Jesus by looking at it square in the eye. May we feel the grief of that moment.

May we embrace the reality of “Fear of the Lord” in our own lives and grow in our expectation of what beautiful, wondrous things are to come.  May we grow in piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding, wisdom and fear of the Lord. May these gifts of the Holy Spirit transform our lives as we approach the suffering and anguish of Holy Thursday, the pain and shame of the crucifixion on Good Friday and the joy and glory of Christ’s resurrection this Easter.

And may the mercy of God transform us and bring us new life. 

Homily–2nd Sunday of Lent–Blinded By The Light

Genesis 12:1-4a

2 Timothy 1:8b-10

Matthew 17:1-9

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Remember that popular 70s song, “Blinded By The Light?  The rest of the song’s refrain was almost unintelligible -- until the advent of internet-based lyrics websites.

            “Blinded By The Light.” This is what’s going on here in today’s Gospel message. Jesus is transfigured and radiated light, blinding his disciples to the reality before them.  The three disciples are just as bewildered about the experience as we were about those song lyrics.

In the transfiguration, we have proof Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. He’s the new Moses. He’s the Suffering Servant; a person we should listen to.

Filled with good intentions, Peter proposes what could be a religiously significant idea, the creation of three tents for Jesus and his two famous friends (commemorating the Jewish Feast of Booths). 

“While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.’  When the disciples heard this, they fell prostrate and were very much afraid.”    

How many of us are afraid as we walk through this valley of the shadow of death? How many of us are living in the shadows unable to see the light of Christ?  

Perhaps we, too, are “blinded by the light.”  Or perhaps we need to do a few things before the light can shine through to our souls. 

Lent is a good time to reflect on our spiritual blindness, these feelings of darkness, of fear, of abandonment, of our own sinfulness, and draw closer to the light of Christ.

From the life of St. Teresa of Calcutta, we discovered there are two kinds of shadows. One form of shadow can be divine (as found in today’s Gospel reading and St. Teresa’s life). The other form of shadow is more sinister (like when we sin while operating in the shadows). 

Our prayer life can help us discern between the two shadow worlds as we find our way back to God.  But even the greats struggle with this.

Archbishop Sartain sent us deacons a beautiful book about St. Teresa of Calcutta called, “I Loved Jesus in the Night,” soon before she became a saint.

A Dominican priest from Ireland, Fr. Paul Murray, penned this beautiful, short and easy-to-read book.(Click HERE to order the book on Amazon)

On the cover the book claims “a secret revealed.” The secret is really no secret to most Catholics who’ve heard about Mother Teresa’s letters or read the book “Come Be My Light.”

Mother Teresa had a transfiguring encounter with Christ while on a train in India headed on spiritual retreat in September 1946.  At the time she was head mistress at a private girl’s school.

Her encounter with Christ illumined her heart to the needs of the poorest of the poor in India; the people she saw each and every day, living in the streets, just outside her comfortable and cloistered community.

Jesus called Mother Teresa to go to the darkest place in the world and “be my light.” Go into the slums of Calcutta, minister to untouchables and leave behind everything comfortable and safe.

It took her several years to convince her Bishop, Sisters of Loreto superiors, and the Vatican to let her do what Christ ordered this humble woman to do.  But eventually her persistence won out.

As she went about her new ministry and started recruiting young women to join her (many her former students), Mother Teresa began to experience a terrible darkness in her spirit.  She could no longer feel Christ or God’s presence in her prayer life.  This went on for the remainder of her life. The revelation surprised and shocked many when it came out years after her death.

How could this woman so filled with Christ that it radiated from her very being not feel Jesus or God in her prayer life?  Was it a mysterious paradox or a troubling contradiction?

This was the secret revealed in Fr. Paul’s book, and in the book “Come Be My Light.”

Fr. Paul believes Mother Teresa was experiencing the Dark Night of the Soul, referred to by Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross.

Fr. Paul says the darkness was not depression or despair. “Rather it was the shadow cast in her soul by the overwhelming light of God’s presence.”

God was “utterly present and yet utterly hidden” to Mother Teresa for most of her ministry leading the Missionaries of Charity.  

As Fr. Paul put it, “His intimate, purifying love (was) experienced as a devastating absence and even, on some occasions, as a complete abandonment.”

Could it be Mother Teresa, too, was blinded by the light?

Maybe you’ve experienced similar feelings of abandonment by God?

Catholic author and priest Henri Nouwen wrote THIS about the overwhelming power of the light of Christ: 

"We only know that we're in darkness when we come into the light of God's love.  It is only in the light, in the fullness of the sun, that we know there is a shadow." 

Many times these shadows are places where we do things that are less than holy… like slander our neighbor, or post Islamophobic or other racist messages on Facebook, or look at things we shouldn’t look at online, or bad mouth homeless people, immigrants, the poor or people who speak on their behalf, or cheat on a spouse? 

St. John of the Cross challenges us to see our souls as windows and our sins as smudges on those windows.

“A ray of sunlight shining on a smudgy window is unable to illumine the window completely and transform it into its own light. It could do this if the window were cleaned and polished.”

So, how do we clean and polish the smudges off the windows of our souls?

Through counsel, one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Counsel is the gift of right judgment where we come to understand the difference between right and wrong, choose the right, avoid sin, and live out the values taught to us by Jesus.   

  

Counsel builds on both wisdom and understanding. It comes from the Holy Spirit, mostly through prayer, reading sacred scripture or the catechism, or is found in the confessional. 

As St. John of the Cross reminds us, “A soul makes room for God by wiping away all the smudges and smears…, by uniting its will perfectly to God’s (will).  … When this is done the soul will be illumined and transformed in God.”

The Sacrament of Reconciliation and absolution are the best way to wipe away these smudges.

  Mother Teresa knew this perfectly well.  It’s why the only people who knew about her suffering in darkness all those years were her confessors and spiritual directors.

In the second letter of Timothy we heard today,

“He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began.”

What expectation has Christ bestowed on us? Are we listening to his voice? Have we united our will with the will of God in our lives?  Perhaps this is the reason for so much darkness in the world today.

For Mother Teresa, this darkness, these shadows, were her suffering (50 years of suffering!). This suffering united her with the suffering of the poor in their desolation, and the suffering of Jesus on the Cross.    

 Franciscan Fr. Richard Rohr shared something enlightening about suffering, and it definitely applies to St. Teresa, and all of us: 

“If suffering is ‘whenever we are not in control’ then you can see why some form of suffering is absolutely necessary to teach us how to live beyond the illusion of control and give that control back to God. Then we become usable instruments because we can share our power with God’s power.”

St. Teresa of Calcutta was a usable instrument in God’s hands and radiated the light of Jesus to the world. She’s now a saint to those living in darkness; those who feel bewildered, abandoned or lost, but who are determined to keep walking the path of faith.

As we walk on our Lenten journey, may we each grab a bottle of Windex and starting cleaning the smudges on the windows of our souls, and let Christ’s light shine through before all.  

May we discern if our darkness is a sign of our own closeness to Jesus or something else.

May our spiritual sight be made pure by Christ.

Then, and only then, we will no longer by blinded by the light, but transformed by it.

Homily - School Mass on Laudato Si - 2/16/2017

Genesis 9:1-13

Mark 8:27-33

Laudato Si

-     Written in June 2015

-     Pope Francis’ Papal Encyclical on care for our common home (Planet Earth)

-      Named from Saint Francis of Assisi's 13th-century "Canticle of the Sun" (also called Canticle of the Creatures), a poem and prayer in which God is praised for the creation of the different creatures and aspects of the Earth

                   Top 7 Things You Need To Know about Laudato Si

1.    For the first time, caring for the earth is seen from a religious/faith perspective and Laudato Si is NOW added to the body of Catholic Social Teaching

2.    From now on discussions about ecology can be grounded in Sacred Scripture and Church Tradition

                                          i.    Gospel of Creation (Chapter 2 - Read It!) – It leads readers on a reflection of scripture for care of the planet that starting with Genesis

3.    Climate change has a disproportionate effect on the poor (developing countries:  Latin American, Africa and much of Asia)

                                          i.    Go to areas near the Amazon Rain Forest of South America and see the vast devastation that has happened in the past 50 years (tearing down of the forest)

4.    Technology is NOT the key to human existence

                                          i.    The dangers of consumerism (needing every new gadget)

                                        ii.    Sometimes we embrace new technology without thinking about its effects on our planet and its people (iPad screens)

                                       iii.    Christian spirituality by contrast offers a growth marked by moderation and the capacity to be happy with little

5.    The encyclical has a critique of selfishness and indifference

                                          i.    Asks: Why are the wealthy turning away from the poor? 

1.    Some feel they are more worthy of their wealth and status in the world

2.    Decision-makers are removed from the plight of the poor on the planet with no real physical connection to their brothers and sisters in poverty

                                        ii.    Selfishness leads to evaporation of the notion of the Common Good (one of the Catholic Church's most important teachings)

6.    Everything is connected

                                          i.    We are all linked to creation, we are part of nature, but our decisions about how we treat the earth have an effect on the future of the planet

7.    This encyclical is addressed to everyone on the planet

                                          i.    Not just 1.2 billion Catholics, but all 7 billion people on the planet

                                        ii.    Calling for an ecological conversion

                                        iii.    Listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor

What can we do to help save the planet?

1)      Turn off lights

2)      Reduce your use of water (5-10 minute showers vs. 15-20 minute showers)

3)      Help your family to recycle and compost (paper, plastics, food)

4)      Start a garden this spring -  grow vegetables and fruits

5)      Walk more, drive less

6)      Live more simply

7)      Don’t take more than our fair share