Christmas Homily – 2013

Midnight Mass readings

(Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96:1-3,11-13; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14)

           What an incredible event we celebrate tonight! These events of 2,000 years ago still are remembered and observed. For as Isaiah says, “a son is born to us, a child is given for us – and we call him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever”. “Today is born our savior, Christ the Lord” our Psalm proclaims.

            For the past 2,000 years, artists and iconographers and songwriters and poets have memorialized this night. And we have been graced with the beauty of their efforts to the point where each of us has a picture in our minds of what this night looked like all those years ago. And they are beautiful images – so many glorious and joyful representations of that special night.

            But I want you to put all of those images aside for a moment – including the beautiful nativity scene that you see in front of you. Instead, I want you to picture a night when a transient young woman and her betrothed stop in a remote village as she gives birth to her child. I want you to see a young couple, far away from home, scared and anxious about this child they are about to have. See the meager surroundings – a stable that is not even totally enclosed – all that was available to them as strangers.

            And now see the baby – naked and cold until his mother wraps him in rags. Hungry and crying until his mother nurses him to feed him.  Born far from family, friends, - homeless and without anyone to witness his birth and celebrate with his parents other than some dirty shepherds that were in the neighboring fields.

            This is how Jesus comes into the world – naked, hungry, cold, homeless. Is it any wonder that he would later teach us to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger? I wonder sometimes if this deep compassion that he felt came from his very own experiences from the moment of his birth.

            Jesus born hungry, cold, homeless - means that Jesus is, yes, Emmanuel, God With Us, but he is also God OF us. God became what we are. And what are we? Well, we are frequently weak, unpredictable creatures, tied down by the limitations of time and space. Jesus not only took on our flesh and bone but took on our frailty as well. We are prone to illness, and moodiness, and loneliness…but God OF us means that we have a way out of all of that – we have a God who is not distant from us but is so close to us because God became OF us.

            God OF us means that just as Jesus shared in our humanity, we have the possibility of a share in his divine life. We no longer need to be afraid. No matter what it is that we are experiencing, all of our trials, all of our challenges, our loneliness, our discomforts – we know that God understands because in Jesus we have God OF us.

             That means that our faith is a faith of hope and not of despair; a faith of joy and not of anxiety; a faith of confidence and not of fear. For God came so very close to us in Jesus of Nazareth. And so tonight we celebrate those events of 2,000 years ago knowing that because of this night our lives and the lives of all people are changed – because God is OF us. 

Gaudete! Rejoice!

Homily for the Third Sunday of Advent - Cycle A

December 15, 2013

A few weeks ago Pope Francis issued his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium – the Joy of the Gospel. For the past few weeks we have been singing the refrain to O Come O Come Emmanuel – Rejoice, rejoice! The entrance antiphon for today’s liturgy- if you checked it out in the Missalette – comes from Paul’s letter to the Philippians: Rejoice in the Lord always; I say again, rejoice! Indeed the Lord is near!

           It is this phrase that is the reason this is called Gaudete Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy – and the name Gaudete comes from the Latin version of the Entrance Antiphon.  The readings, the prayers of the Mass, everything is intended to lift our spirits to joy. The third candle on our Advent wreath is pink, or technically, rose-colored – the color of joy – a mixture of purple and white. Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice.

            That’s a whole lot of rejoicing! And then we look around in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our country, in our world, and we might wonder what there is to rejoice about. All of us know someone who is out of work, or underemployed, or having hard financial times. All of us know someone who is suffering with illness, or has lost a loved one.

            The holidays especially can be difficult times for us as we struggle to make sense of the inconsistency between the happiness that we are supposed to have at the holidays and the pain or sadness we might feel. That’s why we are providing pamphlets that we have in a display in the side vestibule that might help you or someone you know cope with the emotional roller coaster of the holidays.

            And yet we are still encouraged to rejoice, to be joyful. Our readings (and Pope Francis) might help us to figure out how to deal with this incongruity.

            The first reading invites us to be filled with joy and to express it in singing and rejoicing – even when everything seems bleak. The Israelites had been exiled into Babylon, and they were awaiting a restoration of their homeland – and once they returned, they are to be joyful, even in the middle of the rubble of their Temple and the ashes of Jerusalem.  This is not a dismissal of reality, but was an expression of hope that God will restore and save and bring the parched desert to a place of fragrant flowers. Their joy was to come from a trust and confidence in God – because they had encountered a God who had saved them.

            This is no small feat – think about how hard we make it to be joyful even at times when we should have no problem with it at all. There is the story of the mother and her young daughter who went out for a day of Christmas shopping and after going from store to store and being in all kinds of crowds, they were leaving one of the last stores, and in a voice of tired exasperation, the mother said to her daughter, “Did you see the nasty look that saleswoman gave me?” The daughter replied, “Oh no, Mommy, you had that nasty look when we left the house this morning!”

            We fail to be people of joy because we mistake joy for getting everything we want – we mistake joy for satisfaction. But that’s not joy. Pope Francis says that if we want to lead a dignified and fulfilling life – a life of joy, we have to reach out to others and seek their good. The joy we are about is the joy of the Gospel – the joy of the good news – the joy that fills the hearts and lives of those who encounter Jesus.

            What happens when people encounter Jesus? The gospel makes clear the result of an encounter with Jesus: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. Maybe we find joy so hard because we fail to realize that this is us: we are the blind and the lame and the leper and the deaf and the dead and the poor. We are blind to the sufferings of people across the world, across the country or across the street; we are lame in our walk of faith and conversion and take steps with Jesus only half-heartedly; we are lepers, separated from our families and our loved ones because of old quarrels, old hurts, old scars; we are deaf to those who need us just to listen to them for a while; we are dead in our spiritual life, just going through the motions at Mass and having a prayer life that is on life-support; we are the poor who desperately need the Good News proclaimed to us so that we can be heralds of that same Good News to others.

            When we realize the opportunity for transformation that we have in Jesus – we can shout Gaudete! Rejoice! because we allow ourselves to be transformed by him. Pope Francis says that with Jesus, joy is constantly born anew – and that no one – no one – is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.

            This season of Advent calls us to reform ourselves, calls us to conversion. We are called to clean ourselves up to make room for the coming of the Lord – we are to make room for that personal encounter with Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas.

            And once we realize our need for Jesus and open ourselves up to an encounter with him we can say: Rejoice in the Lord always – I say again, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near!

Joy to the World!

Justice Perspective – December 2013

            Have you had enough of Christmas sale advertisements yet? Are you almost wishing that we would just get it over with? Does it seem like the whole shopping and decorating season began even earlier this year?

            With still weeks to go before the actual celebration of Christmas, it is easy to get caught up in the hype and the commercialism of the season.  Each year we hear messages that criticize how Christmas is even more about buying and less about Jesus. And each year we agree and shake our heads and long for the days when it wasn’t so.

           

            But are we doing anything differently this year to change any of that? Are we actually willing to find a way to make a difference?

           

            Unfortunately, I was not able to find any survey that compared the Christmas shopping habits of Catholics to other Americans, but it would be a fair guess to suppose that we are not very different. After all, American Catholics vote like other Americans, hold views about the death penalty and other issues like other Americans – why assume that we would shop any differently?

            And perhaps that’s where the problem is. Catholic Social Teaching has long supported the dignity of work and the rights of workers. But how many Catholics were in the throngs that stormed the doors of more than a dozen stores that are now open on Thanksgiving evening? The workers of many of these stores were told “don’t even ask” for time off that day, meaning that any time they intended to spend the holiday with family was now gone.

            Catholic teaching has also professed the dignity of people and the preferential option for the poor. Where are those values in how Catholics shop and spend at Christmas? Latest estimates from economists are that the “average American family” will spend over $750 this year on Christmas gifts, decorations, cards, trees, and food. And about thirty percent of Americans will spend over one thousand dollars.

            All of that adds up to total spending by Americans – on “holiday spending” for 2013 – of over $600 billion. (Yes, that is with a “b”). Experts predict that we will spend over $24 billion on decorations and flowers alone. Is there any reason to believe that Catholics spend any differently than the “average American family”?

            Maybe we have to do things differently if we want to break the cycle of commercialism and consumption and replace it with compassion and Christ-centeredness. A few years ago Catholic Relief Services (CRS) began a “Joy to the World” campaign that was intended to focus on the blessings of Christmas and provide ways for people to honor loved ones by giving gifts that give twice – once by helping the poor overseas and also by honoring those on our gift giving list. CRS had a three-fold program that provides principles for making Christmas a real celebration of the birth of Jesus: Prepare prayerfully, shop responsibly, and give generously.

            Preparing prayerfully means taking the time to reflect on how the incarnation of Jesus brings infinite dignity to all people. Shopping responsibly means buying fair trade gifts when we can, and at least patronizing retailers and manufacturers that have fair labor practices. Giving generously means setting aside a percentage of our spending and donating that money to life-giving projects and community-building aid to the world’s poor – in the name of those we love.

            If we are willing to be different, we can still make Christmas an authentic celebration of Jesus’ birth and through our compassion bring joy to the world.  

Is Labor Day Still Relevant?

Justice Perspective, September, 2013, WNY Catholic

            

Did you know that Labor Day was declared a national holiday in 1894 during the Presidency of Grover Cleveland? Or that it was established in response to the killing by the US military of 30 workers striking against the Pullman Railway company?

            Did you know that just three years earlier in 1891 Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical Rerum Novarum, on the rights of workers and the dignity of work?

            As we celebrate Labor Day 2013 we should be conscious of what the holiday is all about and what the Church teaches about the issue of work and workers. Unfortunately, it seems that we have allowed the retail industry in this country to hijack this holiday and turn it into nothing more than another reason to participate in our national pastime of shopping.

            The tragedy is that while many people use Labor Day to shop, those who work in the retail industry not only do not have a holiday, but frequently have to work even longer hours to accommodate the extra business. And retail employment in our country accounts for 24% - nearly one fourth - of all jobs, so a significant number of our citizens are compelled to work on a day that was intended to honor workers.

            In their 2013 Labor Day Statement, the US Bishops remind us that each Labor Day “is an opportunity to take stock of the ways workers are honored and respected.” And it seems that if we “take stock” honestly, we might conclude that honor and respect for workers is, perhaps, at its lowest point since the sweat shops and child labor factories of the early 1900s.

            The Bishops point out that half of the jobs in our country pay less than $27,000 per year. That is the poverty line for a family of five. The Church has consistently supported the moral obligation of paying workers a “just wage”, which the Church defines as the amount necessary for a person to provide for their own material, social, cultural, and spiritual life and that of their dependents.  How many people do you know that can do that on $27,000 a year or less?

            Acknowledging the widening gap between the affluent and the poorest people in our nation, the Bishops say that the only way to reduce that gap is by creating quality jobs that provide a just compensation and enable workers to live in the dignity appropriate for themselves and their families. And yet so many employers continue to move jobs overseas, or employ increasing numbers of part-time workers to avoid paying benefits, or encourage employment turnover to keep mostly lower-paid workers.

            Consider, too, that there has been a consistent effort on the part of employers to eliminate and prevent unions from representing workers. In 2012, only 11.3% of public and private workers were part of a union – down from 20.1% just thirty years ago in 1983.  And for private sector workers, only 6.6% of them are represented by unions. The Bishops highlight that Catholic teaching has consistently affirmed the right of workers to choose to form a union and bargain collectively. These days this right is being squashed in both the public and private sectors.

            As Catholics, we should either follow the request of our Bishops to promote the dignity of the human person through work that is honorable, pays just wages and recognizes the God-given dignity of the working person; or we should just stop celebrating “Labor Day”.

Good News People!

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 25, 2013

Readings: Isaiah 66:18-21; Psalm 117:1,2(Go out to all the world and tell the good news); Hebrews 12:5-7,11-13; Luke 13:22-30

(NOTE: This homily was prepared to introduce a new parish program called "Good News People" published by JustFaith Ministries. The "infomercial" at the end of the homily reflects that.)

            Who doesn’t love getting good news?

            Think of all the instances of good news in our lives: “We’re getting married!” “I found a job”! “We’re having a baby!” “I got into college!” “I got a promotion!”

            And even some of the less obvious things that we share: “I made a new friend”; “I made up with my sister”; “I’m feeling much better now”.

            And now think about the ultimate Good News that we heard in today’s readings – that God has come to gather people from all languages to proclaim God’s glory – that people will come from the north and south and east and west to recline at the table in God’s kingdom. God has given us salvation and redemption in Jesus Christ – what better news could there be than that?

            And, for those of us who do believe that God has redeemed us in Christ Jesus, we have a mission – as our Psalm says: “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”. Good news has to be shared!

            It is our obligation as baptized Christians to go out and spread the Good News. But – how do we do that? Certainly, we have opportunities to spread the Good News in our conversations within our family or others that we pray with or are friends with. We have opportunities to do that in the way that we live and how behave at work, and with our friends and family. But we have to do it – being a disciple means having a deep relationship with Jesus, not just a casual one. Jesus warns us in today’s Gospel that those of us who rely on just “eating and drinking” with him, or just “listening” to his teaching may find ourselves on the outside of the gates. It takes action – it takes growth – it takes what Pope Francis has said, “going outside of ourselves”.

            But here is the catch: The truth is that, as the old Latin saying goes, “Nemo dat quod non habet” – “You can’t give what you don’t have”. And so, we have to continue to grow in our relationship with the Lord in order to share the Good News with others.

            Our parish is beginning a program to help you make that kind of growth in your relationship with Jesus even deeper. It is called the Good News People program. It is a combination of Scripture reflection, small group sharing, study of Church teaching, and individual prayer and action. We are inviting you to be a part of it. You will meet for seven sessions in the fall, and seven sessions in the spring – a total of 14 times between now and next summer. We will also have a little get-together before we begin and something at the end as well.

            We will be forming groups of about 10 people to meet together for these sessions. You are welcome to form your own group with folks that you already have something going with – perhaps you are on a committee like the decorating committee or the social committee, or you are part of a group like the Knights or Holy Name, or the choir. Or, you can just choose the day and time that is most convenient for you and we will put you together in groups with similar available times! We will be having sessions in the evenings as well as during the day for those who are retired or don’t like to go out in the evening or who work another shift.

            Each group will be led by a facilitator who will be trained to lead the discussion for the group, and everyone will get a binder that will have materials for reading, journaling, and reflection.

            You can take one of the RSVP cards that we will be handing out this weekend – and you can indicate your interest without making a firm commitment. Please give us your name, phone and email and either indicate that you are ready to sign up, or maybe want to be a facilitator, or maybe you are interested but not sure. Just write that on the RSVP – or write your question on the back.

            We want to help our parish grow into a community of disciples that are Good News People. Please join us on the journey by signing up to be a part of the process and together we will go out to all the world to tell the Good News.

The Indignity of Solitary Confinement

August 2013 Justice Perspective

            Anyone who has seen the movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman will remember the explanation of the rules by Boss Carr: “Any man forgets his [clothes] number spends a night in the box…Any man loses his spoon spends a night in the box…Any man fighting in the building spends a night in the box…Any man not in his bunk at eight spends a night in the box…” And on it goes for another six or seven rules.

            What might be a humorous scene in the movie represents a very serious situation for many men and women who are incarcerated. “The box” is commonly known as solitary confinement – sometimes called isolated confinement. The New York State prison system has developed a system of solitary confinement called “Special Housing Units” (SHUs) since the 1970s.

            In these SHUs inmates spend 23 hours a day in a single cell and are denied any programming or religious worship, and are offered only limited privileges to visitation. Current plans by the State call for long periods of confinement in cells that severely restrict access to personal hygiene, physical exercise, human contact and religious worship. Estimates are that there are 4,500 inmates across the State in SHUs on any given day – upwards of 35% higher than the average of other states.

            The New York State Catholic Conference had spoken to this issue as one of its 2012 Legislative Agenda items. The Conference recognized that managing the prisons “clearly depends in part on the ability of correction officers and administrators to discipline inmates for infractions of facility rules.” A program of discipline helps to keep officers and other inmates alike safe from violence and able to exercise their rights.

            The question is, the Conference said, whether “the conditions under which they operate, the extent of their use, and the extended length of time of their use” is such that it denies the inmates their human dignity and whether punishment overrides concerns for safety, rehabilitation or restitution.

            SHUs are but one example of the issue that crime and criminal justice pose for us as Catholics. The US Bishops addressed this moral issue in their document Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration issued in 2000. They note that “our society seems to prefer punishment to rehabilitation and retribution to restoration thereby indicating a failure to recognize prisoners as human beings.”

           

            The Bishops go on to point out that approaching “criminal justice” in a way that is inspired by our Catholic vision is a paradox. On the one hand, “we cannot and will not tolerate behavior that threatens lives and violates the rights of others. We believe in responsibility, accountability, and legitimate punishment.”

            However, a Catholic approach “does not give up on those who violate these laws. We believe that both victims and offenders are children of God…Their lives and dignity should be protected and respected. We seek justice, not vengeance.”

            Blessed Pope John Paul II said this:  “We are still a long way from the time when our conscience can be certain of having done everything possible to prevent crime and to control it effectively so that it no longer does harm and, at the same time, to offer to those who commit crimes a way of redeeming themselves and making a positive return to society. “

            Our Bishops ask us to advocate for a system that simultaneously seeks justice for the victims of crime and upholds the dignity of inmates. We are still a long way off, indeed.

Lord, Teach Us to Pray

Homily for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year C

(Readings: Genesis 18:20-32; Psalm 138:1-8; Colossians 2:12-14: Luke 11:1-13)

         What is it you pray for? Do you have confidence that God will hear your prayer? Do you trust that when you call on God you will be answered?

          I remember that a retreat director once described the four different kinds of prayer in four simple words: "Thanks", "Wow", "Sorry", "Please". Four different kinds of prayer - but doesn’t it seem like we focus so much on the last – Please?

          And there’s nothing wrong with that – if we have a relationship with God, we are bound to ask our friend for something. It is the give and take of any relationship.

          Look at Abraham – how bold he was in bargaining with God. Each time that God agreed to lower the threshold, Abraham asked for more – and each time God agreed again.

          And we bargain with God too, sometimes, don’t we? There is the story of the man who went Christmas shopping at the mall when the parking lot was full and on perhaps the worst weather day of the year – the kind of day when the snow was blowing horizontally and the ice keeps gathering on your windshield – on the inside! And as he was looking for a parking space, he began making promises to God – “if you show me a space, I’ll start going to Church again every week, and I’ll begin giving money to the poor, and I won’t be such a grump to the people I work with…” and at that a space right by the door opened up and the man said, “Nevermind, God – I’ve got this!”

          How often do we look at prayer like that – like it’s some kind of deal that we’re making with God? Or how often do we see prayer as some sort of heavenly candy machine – as long as we put in the right amount of prayer we will get candy dropped in our lap.

          And so we ask God for all kinds of things – at least I do, don’t you? And why not; Jesus tells us in today’s gospel to ask, and seek and to knock, to ask for our daily bread - and that covers a lot of territory! Over the years, I’ve prayed to find a job, or prayed that my father-in-law be healed from cancer, or prayed that my kids arrive home safely – and you better believe that I was storming heaven with prayer when I was in the middle of my heart attack!

          But as I get older and reflect on my prayer life, I have come to realize that behind so many of the things that I have prayed for has been a gnawing fear of losing the people I love and the things I have become attached to. And then I compare that to what Jesus instructs his disciples to pray for: what we need just for today; to pray for forgiveness and to be able to forgive all the debts that others owe us; and to pray that we might be saved from the test that we would surely fail.

          Most of all, by calling God “Father”, “Abba”, “Daddy”, and recognizing God’s name as holy, and calling for the coming of God’s kingdom, Jesus is instructing us to pray in a climate of trust and love. And this, I believe, is the point of why Jesus instructs us to ask, and seek, and knock.

          All of our asking, and seeking and knocking don’t make God more attentive – God already knows what we need before we even utter a word. Instead, our prayer makes us more receptive. When we ask for anything for ourselves or for another, we become mindful of how much we need and how needy we all are – and perhaps we become more compassionate and more understanding, and more willing to do something about all the needs we see around us. The effectiveness of prayer is found in the change it effects in us, not in God. Prayer may not change the situations for which we pray, but frequently we change in the praying. Prayer may not change things for you, but it sure changes you for things.

          When we ask and seek and knock, in one way or another we are opening ourselves to God’s will. When we put ourselves in God’s presence and ask and seek and knock, we acknowledge that we are not in control, that there is something greater than us, and that it is God’s will that we are seeking. And when we have the grace to discover God’s will, we then ask for the courage and the strength to do it. That is the gift of the Spirit that Jesus promises we will receive.

          During the next week, in all of your prayers, be as bold as Abraham, and as courageous as Jesus taught us to be. And then, in your conversation with God, wait with patience, and humility, and faith – and ask to be given the Spirit in order to be an instrument of God’s will to bring the kingdom to earth.