Homily: A Mother's Love
The Bishop is in Love
First, allow me to tell you a joke Fr. Benny told me yesterday, as Fr. Tony had told it to him the day before. It has something to do with Mother’s Day and the Blessed Mother.
Once upon a time a young priest preached at the Bishop’s Mass. Afterwards, the Bishop said to him: “you need to begin your homilies with a story—wake people up, get their attention. Come to my Mass next Sunday and I’ll show you.” So the next Sunday the Bishop begins his homily like this: “I have something to tell all of you: I’m in love with a beautiful woman.” He pauses for effect, and then continues: “Her name is the Blessed Virgin Mary.” So the young priest goes back to his parish and gets up to preach the following Sunday, but catches sight of the Bishop himself standing in the back. He gets nervous, but launches into his homily anyway. “The Bishop is in love with a married woman,” he blurts out, “but I can’t remember her name.”
Mary, our Mother
Her name is Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, wife of St. Joseph and mother of God, and we are so joyful to be in the middle of the Month of May, Mary’s Month. This Sunday is not only Mother’s Day (Happy Mother’s Day to our beautiful mothers) but also the Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima. On May 13, 1917, she appeared to the three shepherd children in a field outside of Fatima, Portugal, to bring peace to a world still gripped in the Great War. Mother’s Day is in May because May is the month of the Blessed Mother. The best gift you can give your mother today is to pray a rosary for her, or even better, with her. I’m going to do that by phone with my mother later today.
Unconditional Love
They say there is no love like a mother’s love. A mother loves her child simply because the child is. There is no question of the child earning his mother’s love. He can do nothing for his mother, or even acknowledge her love. A mother’s love for her child is absolutely unconditional.
Jesus points to the source of all love in today’s Gospel: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you.” God the Father begets his Son, eternally pouring out his divine love into Him. The Son does not “earn” his Father’s love—he simply is the Father’s love. But the Son then gives his Father’s love to another—to us. “I love you as the Father loves me.”
If we are good sons and daughters of our mothers, who loved us unconditionally simply because we were born, we give our mother’s love to another. If we are good disciples of Jesus Christ, who loves us with his Father’s unconditional love, we give Jesus’ love to another.
Love’s Two Stages
Because love has two dimensions, two stages. First, we receive love. St. John puts it like this: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us.” We have no love that is not first received; any love I give was previously given to me from another (my mother, my father, my friends, etc). And the first source of all love in the world is God. So: stage one is to receive love from God.
But love must move to stage two, or it is incomplete and will die. Stage two is to give that love to another, to pass it on. If we just sit on the love given us, it dies. So Jesus says, remain in my love by keeping my commandments. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” This I command you, Jesus says: love one another. Love is not a feeling (no one can command feelings—they are beyond our control). But he can and does command an act of our wills, a decision to love. Everyone possesses the capacity to make this decision to love. This is the basic stewardship principle: everything given to us is meant to be shared. That is particularly true of love. Love received is not complete or effective if I don’t give it away.
A Mother’s Love
I can’t earn love, but I can give it away. What does this authentic love look like? Well, look at a mother. She gives her blood during a pregnancy. She gives her milk after the child is born. She gives her sleep for the first two years; she gives immense amounts of her time and her sweat and her attention to her child. And in giving, she receives, perhaps not immediately, but she receives love. It comes not always from the child, but always from God. Authentic love does not look much like what you see on television. It looks a lot more like what you see in your mother, and hopefully your father too.
Which is why we love our mothers. You have taught us to love. You have given us the love you received from God, and have taught us to share it with another by your very sharing it with us. May we honor you, our mothers, by giving the love you have given us, even until it hurts. May we honor our Blessed Mother, who first received Love Incarnate, Jesus Christ, and then gave Him to us all.
 Homily: Super-size it!
Food is sacred
“Supersize it.” If one, six-dollar burger is good, two is better, and best of all when they are on sale, two for ten dollars! We love to eat. Can you imagine a Sunday morning at St. Joseph’s without donuts? Impossible. I’m glad Myrna takes care of the donuts every Sunday morning around here! Food is essential for human life. But why, then, is food the number one killer in America? Heart disease, due almost entirely to overeating or eating the wrong kinds of foods, is our number one cause of death in America. Actually, food is a sacred gift, and so the abuse of this sacred gift is seriously harmful.
Jesus shows us how to eat
Jesus shows us how to properly order our appetite for food. Consider the Last Supper: Jesus took a little bread, and a little wine. Both are natural, wholesome foods. And this is what we do at Mass: a little bread, a little wine, which is really the very body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus.
How we worship is how we should eat, because food is sacred.
Our market-driven culture teaches us to consume. We are told that food, as much and as often as we can get it, makes us happy. As with all lies, there is a kernel of truth in this: food does make us happy, but in right proportion. Too much food, or the wrong kind of food, makes us bloated, heavy, depressed, and ultimately kills us with every disease from diabetes to cardiac failure.
To be genuinely happy, we must discipline ourselves, as Jesus did. He took only a little baked fish (not fried fish!). He chastised his body; he restrained his appetites. He told his clueless disciples that the Christ had to suffer, and then rise from the dead on the third day.” First, self-denial, then, resurrection. There is no love without discipline, without sacrifice. Our Mass, the central act of worship, is a sacrificial meal, a restrained meal. If you want to be happy, always leave the table a little hungry.
Sex is sacred
Food is one of two human appetites which we must discipline. The other is … I will use a discretionary word … the other is “relations.” Human beings eat to sustain the body, and human beings have relations to sustain the race. We have been taught in our post-Christian society that, just as we need to eat early and often to be happy, so we need to have sexual relations whenever and however we get that “feeling.” This falsehood has resulted in great damage, from an epidemic of sexually-transmitted diseases to marriage and family devastation. Again, there is no real love without discipline, without sacrifice. Food is sacred. Sex is sacred. Because sex is sacred, its abuse is seriously harmful.
Jesus shows us how to love
Jesus and His Church show us how to order our sexual appetites for true and lasting happiness. First, we should not engage in anything even leading to the marital act before we are married. Sex outside of the covenant is just junk food. It only briefly satisfies and eventually makes us sick. Second, we should not make love to our spouses that is not open to the transmission of human life. In other words, the Church has always and everywhere, from the first century, condemned artificial contraception. You may not believe me now, but it is becoming more obvious to everyone, that the social problems of our time began with the pill in the 1950s. At this point, in 2012, we are utterly confused about sexual identity and purpose, but how did we get to this point? By ignoring the Church’s constant teaching that marital relations must be natural and open to life every time.
Natural Family Planning
There is a small but growing group of people who teach this truth, not only in classrooms but in their marriages, in their flesh. Those who teach natural family planning—a natural, “green,” sustainable and healthy means of planning children. The contraceptive industry mocks natural family planning, because they can’t make any money on it. The sexual revolution gurus mock NFP because it requires discipline. But NFP restores sacredness and depth to lovemaking. Those who practice NFP have a virtually zero divorce rate. They are happier, healthier, and more fulfilled in their relational lives. They don’t inject artificial drugs into their bodies, or frustrate natural human acts of love.
All of us have bought into the lies both about eating and about sex. We all engage in gluttony and impurity to some degree. The good news is that it’s never too late. “My children,” writes St. John in the second reading, “I am writing this to you so that you may not commit sin. But if you do sin, we have Jesus Christ, our Advocate.” Peter says it even more boldly in the First reading: “You denied the Holy and Righteous one; the Author of life you put to death….But I know brothers, that you acted out of ignorance.” We have bought into the lie; we have been ignorant. But we can learn from our mistakes. Jesus said to the apostles: “Peace be with you. Why are you troubled?” We are troubled because we are trying to order our lives apart from Christ and his Church. We can turn back to the Church at any time, and begin the process of purification. It is not easy to change bad habits. But we can begin the process, at any time, by fully accepting what Christ and his Church teaches us.
 Jesus Christ is Risen!
Easter Sunday Homily 2012
After Death
What happens after you die? Well, your body decays in the ground, and … what happens to … you? Are you anything more than your body? Is there anything, like a “soul,” that survives the death of your body?
We Christians, and those who live in Christian cultures, take it for granted that when we die, we don’t really die. We can’t imagine dying without some form of life after death—we say grandma became an angel or something that still moves. “Somehow I’ll be OK after I die,” we think. “All will be well in the end; Death can’t really be the end.”
But people didn’t always think like this. We assume there is life after death thanks to one historical event: the resurrection of the Jewish rabbi Jesus Christ around the year 33 AD in the city of Jerusalem. The people of that time—even the Jews themselves—all had different ideas about what happened after death. Some thought it was simply the end—the annihilation of existence. Others thought that people went to a kind of dark, sad, lonely pit called Sheol or Hades. Others thought that we returned to earth in the body of another person—reincarnation. But certainly, certainly, no one thought anyone could rise from the dead, to live forever as the same person. No one had ever done anything like that—to return to life, laughing at his own tomb, simply striding out the door of his mausoleum leaving his burial cloths behind. “I won’t need these anymore!”
Something New
That’s why everyone in the Gospels who sees the empty tomb of Jesus, or meets him after his resurrection, is absolutely confused, terrified, speechless. It’s never happened before, and no one ever expected what actually happened. What we call “Resurrection” was entirely new, and it would transform the human race. Mary Magdalene was bewildered and frightened to find the grave hanging wide open on Sunday morning. Did grave robbers get into it? She ran to get Peter, and breathlessly explained the situation, and then Peter and John themselves ran at top speed. We know this because John, the young man, outdistanced Peter. They went in and found the burial clothes neatly folded—no grave robber job here. They simply did not know what to think: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” He is alive, he is not some kind of monster resuscitated like Frankenstein, and he will meet you in a few days back home. All is well, and all manner of things will be well.
Just a Myth?
It slowly dawned on humanity, in the decades after Christ’s resurrection that year, that God had destroyed the power of death by His death. Christianity began to spread across the globe, and to thoroughly transform humanity. People began to actually lose their fear of death. The growing emptiness of the decaying Roman Empire, growing more irrational and barbaric as it lost faith even in its traditional gods, was filled by the new vitality of Christians. They had nothing to fear, and nothing to lose. They had lost everything on that Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, and gained infinitely more back when Christ rose on Sunday morning. They lived their lives as if already dead, and already resurrected. They were citizens of a greater kingdom.
Is Christianity all just a myth? Did anyone really rise from the dead, or is this just desperately wishful thinking? Jesus Christ is not a myth. His resurrection has transformed the human race. You are witnesses to his death and resurrection. You who are at Mass this morning, just by being here, testify to this faith in a faithless world. Jesus Christ, and the Church he founded, are mocked daily in our culture. Persecutions are coming. I can see them on the horizon. But we have nothing to lose, because we have died with Him, and risen with him, and live in Him. Happy Easter!
 Jesus Emptied Himself to the Point of Death
Our Story
You have just heard the longest Mass reading of the year, the solemn reading of the Passion. It is the only Gospel read dramatically at Mass, in three parts—four parts really, since you take your part too as the congregation. I can’t remember much about the Masses I attended every Sunday as a boy, but I do remember Palm Sunday every year—how long it was, how we would kneel for some moments of silence after Jesus dies, and how strange it was to see the Gospel read dramatically, and even to have my own part to read in it. The Passion Story is the core of the New Testament. Biblical scholars tell us that it was the first part of the Gospels to be set in writing, and then eventually the rest of the details of Jesus’ life were filled in. It is the compact core of our Bibles, the essential summary of our faith; rightly do we read it with high solemnity every year.
Two Colors
Palm Sunday is also the only Mass with two Gospels. The Mass begins in green (with the reading of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem) but quickly turns to red (with the reading of his Passion in that same city). Jesus enters the holy city in triumph, but within days he is strung up on the blood-soaked cross by the furious crowds demanding his death. The crowds’ joyful acclaim quickly turns to violent hatred. How frail we are.
Emptying and being Filled
And yet Jesus never loses sight of his essential mission and purpose. He has come to die for his people, whether they love him or hate him. His love does not fail. And what about us? Brothers, for example, can you love your wife at the very moment that she is screaming at you? That’s the proof of love, when it’s under fire, when you are pinned to the ground.
St. Paul says “Jesus emptied himself … he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And because of his obedience, God “greatly exalted him.” This is how you can love your wife, or your husband, or your child, or parent, or employer, at the very moment he or she is screaming at you: by self-emptying. You find love by giving love. You become full by emptying yourself; you become great by becoming little. Some call this God’s Law of the Gift, that life is essentially a gift to be given, and only in giving do we receive. Many people, especially in our secular culture, think this is nonsense. They reject God’s way of glory through sacrifice. And yet … we all know it is true. No pain no gain. No guts no glory. Our secular culture tries its best to live the illusion of “buying on credit,” of just borrowing (or printing up) more money. But it can’t last. There comes a time when we need to stop spending what we don’t have, to empty ourselves, to give rather than to take. This is essentially what Christ did on the Cross. He stopped borrowing and started paying. He paid the price. And now it’s our turn.
Beyond the Cross
Don’t be afraid of blood. It’s the color of this Mass, and the color of our faith. The red blood of His sacrifice, of our sacrifice, waters the green and leafy branches of new life. We will pass beyond our crosses to a life beyond our capacity to imagine, if we stay true to those crosses with Christ. This week is the week to do it. Let’s be constant and brave this Holy Week, staying close to Christ, as did his Holy Mother, at the foot of the Cross. Beyond Good Friday rises Easter Sunday, for those who remain steady to the last drop of His Sacred Passion.
 Homily: Real Love
Ten Commandments: a building plan for God’s temple
For the last ten weeks we’ve been covering the Ten Commandments in my 6th grade catechism class. “Today,” I say to the class, “we will study the 8th commandment. Does anyone know the 8th commandment?” They all look at the wall, to the Ten Commandments poster. “Thou shalt not lie!” they shout. Let me try that right now with you all: what is the 4th commandment? Honor your father and mother. The seventh commandment? Thou shall not steal. The tenth commandment? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. Now, which is the most important commandment? Yes, that’s right, it’s the First Commandment, Commandment Number One: “You shall have no other gods before me.” God commands us to love him above all else. If we get that first commandment right, everything else will follow. But because we are a little slow sometimes, and a little forgetful, God spells out what loving Him looks like: no cussing, lying, stealing, fornicating, or killing. And go to church on Sundays!
These Ten Commandments reflect the natural law. They make us all—even atheists—better people. They make for an ordered and peaceful culture. Those commandments are a building plan for God’s temple on earth, but if we invite Christ’s Holy Spirit into this temple, the Church becomes a living body. We are that living body, and each of us temples of the Holy Spirit. These temples need cleaning out from time to time, as we see Jesus doing in the Gospel. In Jerusalem, the god, “money,” was edging out the true God. Jesus had to clean it out, like he cleans out our souls every Lent. He sweeps out our lust, impatience, selfishness, cussing, gluttony, and material greed, through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We all need a good Lent every year to keep His temple pure.
 Scrutinies: Jesus thirsts for you.
Today we move sixteen people one step closer to Catholic Church by having them undergo a “scrutiny,” part of the long process of initiation. The Gospel for this Mass is always the Samaritan woman at the well, John 4. Jesus is thirsty—for water, of course, but much thirstier for the love of this woman. He thirsts for your love and my love, and we give Him so little. He will end up dying on the Cross, abandoned by almost everyone, with these words on his parched lips: “I Thirst.”
When you think about it, this is our greatest thirst and our greatest hunger: to love and be loved. When I was in 10th grade, the teacher asked us all what we really wanted in life, more than anything else. I think I wrote something about a red Ferrari. But the girl next to me, a somewhat expansive individual with a big heart and even bigger voice, slipped me a piece of paper. I read these words on it: “I want to be loud.” I looked at her: “You want to be loud?” I was thinking that she was already loud enough. But she laughed loudly but then said shyly, “No, silly. I want to be loved.” I had misread her handwriting. But I’ve never forgotten that insight. “I want to be loved.” Of course, that’s what we all really want, even more than a red Ferrari. This first scrutiny asks our 16 candidates two questions: do you know Jesus’ thirst for you? Do you know your thirst for Him?
Love
Let’s talk about love. This Samaritan woman by the well was thirsting for love, but not finding it. She had been married five times, and was on Man Number Six, though not married to him. Jesus knew this of course, but does not condemn her. He loves her utterly. In time, she comes to know of His tender love for her, His enduring love, his perfect love for her.
Enochs: “it feels so good…”
I want to talk to you about what happened at Enochs High School recently. Some call it love, and some call it disgusting. You know the story: 41-year-old Mr. Hooker left his wife and three children to move in with his 18-year-old student. I want to entirely respect Mr. Hooker and his young friend, Jordan. Like Jesus, we must not condemn them, but evaluate what they did. Letters flooded the Modesto Bee after this incident, and every one of them expressed disgust. But we must ask: why are we disgusted? We used to object to unmarried people living together, but that was long ago; we don’t find homosexual relationships disgusting; we don’t find pornography disgusting—I mean the stuff you see all the time on HBO and MTV. We have accepted all these sexual aberrations. We say, that’s their choice. Elvis Presley wrote a song in 1965 called “It feels so right; how can it be wrong?” If you google that line, you will pull up dozens of rock songs since then that say the same thing. If it feels right for me, it must be right for me. Mr. Hooker and his young friend insist that they feel so very right about their relationship. So who are we to say it is wrong?
Real Love
I think we object to a teacher having sex with his student because we do, after all, want to believe in real love. Genuine love is not defined merely by feelings. Feelings come and go, but love is a decision. It is a decision to give to a wife and children rather than to take from them. It is described by words like fidelity, reverence, sacrifice, commitment, and devotion. We are disgusted when someone is so selfish as to leave his wife and three daughters for a private fantasy. He disregards not only his own family but all of us, because a stable society is built on marriage and family life, not personal fantasies. How long do you think Mr. Hooker and Jordan will stay together? Do you think they will build a beautiful family together? What will happen to Mr. Hooker’s wife and children, to whom he has already committed himself?
Contraception: Why Not?
How did America get so confused about love and sex? It started, of course, with Adam and Eve eating that darned apple. But more recently, it was the artificial contraceptive pill—hormonal contraceptives—that pushed us from genuine love into self-centeredness. Now, I apologize if you’ve never heard the Church’s teaching on contraception presented well. The Church, up this point, has not done a decent job of teaching it, and she has lots of enemies who love to confuse the issue. Artificial contraception is much in the news these days—everyone’s talking about it, so I too will talk about it.
When the hormonal pill was first marketed in the 1950s, marriages and families were strong. So were our school systems, our social structures, and our economy. As artificial contraception gained acceptance, the Church reaffirmed her constant teaching: that every act of marital intercourse, to be a genuine act of love, must be open to the transmission of new life. That teaching stands, while the culture around it has disintegrated. If you separate sex from babies, then the whole culture will disintegrate. Marriages will disintegrate, and with them families and eventually society will revert back to a kind of dark ages, where the strong rule the weak. Love and trust will fade from public life, to be replaced by violence, distrust, and fear. Is this happening?
There is a much better way to plan our families. There is a natural way, more effective than drugs, a way that respects a woman’s natural cycles and enriches relationships. Those who plan their families in the natural way almost never divorce—less than 3% compared with the national rate of 55%. It costs no money, but it does take commitment, discipline, and trust—the very stuff of true love.
Trust the Church
So, dear brothers and sisters, let us trust the Church. She knows what she’s talking about, because she was established by Christ and is guided by the Holy Spirit. Even if you are not Catholic and don’t believe in the Church, you must admit that couples who plan their families naturally—who refuse artificial contraception—have healthier, longer-lasting relationships. Despite this evidence, the government and the media pundits insist that natural family planning does not work. Almost every political cartoon in the Modesto Bee over the last three weeks has mocked the Church’s proven wisdom on contraception. Now is the time for Catholics to understand what has always been taught. Now is the time to do our level best to live the genuine nobility that Christ calls us to through his holy Church.
 Listening is Love
Listening to each other
Today’s Scriptures point out the crucial virtue of obedience. Jesus was transfigured before them, and a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved son. Listen to him.” God says, if you love me, you will listen to me. And if you listen to me with your heart, you will obey me.
How do you feel when you’re talking about something important with a friend and you realize … they have not been listening? You’re talking on the phone and your get the feeling that your friend on the other end has been checking his Facebook page while you’re talking. The other day my mother was talking to me on the phone and I wasn’t listening to her. At one point she asked me a question and … there was this pause. “What did you say, Mom?”
“Joe,” my mother said, “were you listening to me?”
Listening is love. We all know how it feels to be really listened to, and we all know how it feels to be ignored. And when the person we are listening to is an authority, listening means obedience. God is our ultimate authority—he is never wrong, and never asks of us anything that would harm us—so listening to God means obeying Him absolutely. “This is my beloved son—listen to him.” That means, obey Him with dedicated trust.
Abraham’s obedience
We have the fearful story of Abraham and Isaac in the first reading. God had promised Abraham a son, and Abraham waited twenty years to see that promise fulfilled. His wife Sarah finally bore Isaac and he became the beloved child of his parents’ old age. When Isaac is about 8 years old, God tests Abraham’s obedience by asking him to slaughter his own son. God seems cruel, even sadistic. If it were anyone else, we could not trust him. But we can trust God. We can obey him without fear. Abraham makes ready to kill his own son.
The Virtue of Obedience
Abraham listens to God. God asks us to listen and trust His Son, Jesus Christ, even when it seems impossible. But we find it hard. In Spanish, kids often say this in the confessional: “no escuche’ a mis padres.” I did not listen to my parents. They don’t just mean that they ignored their parents, but that they disobeyed them. The word “Obey” in Latin, “obedire,” simply means to “listen carefully.” This is my beloved son. Listen carefully to him. Obey him, even when he asks something extraordinary of you.
We are constantly told, in our culture, that “choice” is important. “Keep your options open.” “You have many choices.” You want to sell any product, call it a “choice” product. But once we know that something is God’s will, we have only one choice, not many choices. Our one choice is to obey his commandment, to follow him carefully. Love is listening; love is obedience. Jesus said, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Jesus speaks through his Church
Jesus Christ speaks through the Church he founded 2000 years ago. Are we Catholics listening to Him? We are, but we could all do better. It is not easy to listen attentively every day to his voice in the Church, especially when Satan throws ten thousand conflicting voices at us through every conceivable form of social media. For example, God commands us to keep holy the Sabbath—to attend Mass every Sunday. But how many of us do that? I wonder how many high profile Catholics, the “Catholic” politicians and media stars, who presume to speak for the Church, keep this basic commandment. God commands us to tithe, but how many of us make a serious attempt to do that? God commands us to be fruitful and multiply, to have children, and to plan our families naturally, without artificially sterilizing our marital relations. How many of us obey this clear and constant teaching of Jesus Christ? On this issue of artificial contraception, which is so much in the news these days, our disobedience on this one point has led to manifold social problems, from broken families and social disintegration to economic depression. Many Catholics laugh when I say contraception is the root of most of our social and even economic problems. But the fact is, we Catholics have disobeyed Christ on this issue for two generations, and we are seeing the prophecies of Pope Paul VI realized. For forty years we have shut our ears to the clear teaching of Christ through his Church.
The Mass
It is hard to listen to God, and to God’s servants, be they popes, priests, or simply our own parents. But it is harder, in the long run, not to listen. To listen well, we need to pray. So I beg you to obey God in the first and most fundamental of all his commandments: keep holy the Sabbath. Mass every Sunday. Consistent participation in the most perfect prayer, the Mass, will keep us from going completely off the rails. Let us pray to our Holy Mother, Blessed Mary, to keep us faithful to the Mass, and faithful to Christ her son.
 "If you die with me, you will rise with me"
(This homily was given at St. Patrick's in Ripon)
Lent: dust to dust
How is your lent going? We are five days into this most holy season, a retreat time of purity, sacrifice, and joy. I am preaching all of Fr. Peter’s English Masses this weekend to introduce myself as your Lenten Mission director, and to encourage you to attend the mission, which will be at 7pm Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the coming week.
I hope many of you were able to kick off Lent with a good Ash Wednesday. At my parish of St. Joseph’s in Modesto, the crowds were immense. In my 12 years as pastor, I’ve never seen crowds that big or lines so long. Everyone was there: rich and poor, Mexicans and Anglos, teens and seniors, even democrats and republicans. It reminded me of Ash Wednesdays in New York City, where I attended seminary. We would spend all day at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, giving out ashes. Everyone came for ashes: the cabbies and the power brokers, office gals in smart business suits wearing their running shoes for the trot over from Broadway, news anchors and opera stars from Times Square, street cleaners and Wall Street financiers, homeless folk and Park Avenue elite. All were shoulder to shoulder in line, patiently waiting to get a smudge of ashes under the great gothic arches of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. This is the day when princes and paupers alike confess the universal truth: I am not perfect, I will die someday, and I need God’s help.
It’s ironic, really. As religion is more than ever ridiculed, as God is increasingly mocked in public life—even as our government seeks to shut down religion in America, the crowds at Mass are bigger than ever. Why is this? Because we know that sin is killing us: our marriages, our families, our culture. Deep down we know this, and we seek refuge in the simple truth of Ash Wednesday: “If you die with me, you will rise with me.”
The Ark
In the first reading, a flood wipes out the whole mess. Only Noah and his family are saved from death in those raging waters. The Flood was not God’s punishment for sin, but the consequences of our sin. And yet, even so, God said never again. How would he save us from our own sin? By sending his own son, the Savior. And in today’s Gospel, this savior enters the wilderness of our sin and its consequences, a zone of death, to fight for us. It is a wilderness full of beasts and angels, the best and the worst of our human race. It is planet earth, laid waste by broken families, violent streets, blasphemous language, drugs and alcohol, infidelities and brutality of every sort, but also graced with the lives of saints like John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Jesus goes into the desert to rescue the beasts and make them into angels.
Noah’s built an ark, under God’s direction: a mighty ship that would save his family from the dark waters. The ark is a life raft, prefiguring the Church herself. Anyone inside this Ark, the Church, is safe, but anyone outside will drown. Jesus is the captain of this Ark, and the Ark is Our Lady. She is the great Ark of the Covenant who bears Christ within her. She guides us to Christ, and He guides us to the Father.
Parish Mission
Our Parish Mission next week will focus on Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant, and Jesus, the divine presence in that Ark. He is always within her. The closer we draw to Mary, the closer we draw to Jesus inside of her. There is no authentic devotion or life in Christ that ignores or disowns his mother, Mary.
I have been giving retreats to Mother Teresa’s sisters around the world for most of my priesthood. My three talks will be from those I give to the sisters, adapted for the parish. The first will tells the story of Mother Teresa’s life and her significance in the 20th Century. We will discover her devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Holy Rosary. The second will be the first two mysteries of the rosary, the Annunciation and the Visitation. And the third talk will be on the Great Sign of Revelation 12: the Ark of the Covenant, which shows us the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I will tell some stories from my work with her in 1997 and my friends’ experiences with her. We will show a little bit of her life on a video.
I hope you can come. It will be each evening at 7pm. I will preach in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and do benediction at the end. There is wonderful grace in simply coming to a mission, because it is God’s will that we do this during Lent. Confessions will follow each talk. Each evening is self-contained, so even if you can’t make all three, I encourage you to come to one or two. But for those who make all three, I will grant a plenary indulgence.
Let us pray to Our Lady now in the words of Mother Teresa:
Mary, Mother of Jesus, give me your heart,
so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate,
so full of love and humility,
that I may be able to receive Jesus in the Bread of Life,
love Him as you loved Him,
and serve Him in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor.
Amen.
 Spiritual Paralysis
Paralysis
In today’s Gospel, the man was paralyzed, helpless. He could not move. He was completely dependent on others. Have you ever been laid up, and had to gratefully depend on the care of your friends? We learn to love each other so much more deeply when we surrender ourselves to another’s care, or surrender ourselves to caring for another. Illness can be a beautiful means of receiving divine love.
The man was paralyzed, and his friends brought him to Jesus. They couldn’t get through crowds around the door, so they climbed up on the roof, broke a hole in it, and lowered him down with ropes. “When Jesus saw their faith”—not only “his” faith, but the faith of the man’s friends, he said to the paralytic: “My child, your sins are forgiven.” Jesus goes straight to the root problem: the man’s sins. His real problem was not physical paralysis, but the spiritual paralysis that binds all men and women.
Last night the musician Tony Melendez gave a concert here in Modesto. He was born without arms, but he plays the guitar with his toes and sings so beautifully. Tony radiates joy, despite or even perhaps because of his disability. A man does not need perfect physical health to be happy. That is a lie of the “supermodel culture.” In fact, physical gifts can lead to great sadness—poor Whitney Houston, for example. She began singing Gospel music in her church choir, but the world twisted her gifts, seduced her, and led her to a bitter end. A growing spiritual paralysis eventually killed her.
Jesus reconciled the man
Jesus goes straight to the heart of the matter. “My Child, your sins are forgiven.” This is the only word we need to hear to be truly happy: that whatever we’ve done or not done in our lives, God is greater than our failures. He will reconcile us if we trust him. This is the “word” that Jesus was preaching—“many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them, and he preached the word to them.” This is the word that draws out the human heart, and draws immense crowds. This is real healthcare.
True Health Care
A word about the healthcare debate between the Church and the current presidential administration. (Please take a bulletin home, because it includes an important insert from our Bishops on this issue.) The most vital healthcare Americans need is not contraception or access to all sorts of pharmaceuticals. The real healthcare we need is for our souls, because America is sick at its soul.
A secular government is promising all sorts of Band-Aids for our national paralysis—limitless access to sexual intercourse, countless free drugs and pharmaceuticals, and a towering debt to pay for it all. But only Jesus addresses the real problem: we lack God’s grace. We must turn to a power higher than the government.
The HHS mandate in question is not really about contraception, although the administration wants to frame it in those terms. The Mandate is really about an executive branch of government that seeks utter control even over our consciences. It cannot tolerate a power higher than itself. It wants to erase any faith-based activity from the public square; it wants to restrict the people’s faith to private churches. The Mandate would drive Catholic hospitals and universities—indeed, any conscience-based activity—out of business. It is an old problem, but we are facing it anew.
Our national paralysis is becoming obvious. A stubborn economic paralysis depresses America; political gridlock frustrates collaboration among rival parties. The battle is not about healthcare or about the economy or about politics. The battle is over America’s soul. We have turned our backs on God. Are we willing to turn back to a power higher than the government, or do we somehow hope that the congress, the presidential administration, and the courts can solve our conflicts? We are truly a conflicted nation at this time, and it is causing a persistent paralysis of our national energies.
Lent Begins
Lent begins this Wednesday, Ash Wednesday. The word “Lent” means springtime in Old English, and every springtime is a new beginning. We enter into Lent with true hope: that God will help us conquer our addictions and overcome our paralysis. The first reading from Isaiah speaks this hope: “Remember not the things of the past—see, I am doing something new!” God gives us another day, another chance, another Lent. We can regain our innocence; we can recover the joy of our youth. Make a plan for Lent now: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Give yourself to Jesus this Lent through resolute acts of love and sacrifice. And put it all into the immaculate hands of our Blessed Mother.
Jesus healed people, and only the Church can heal and protect the dignity of every human person in our nation. We cannot look to the Government to heal our cultural ills. Our nation needs the Church as much or more than it needs the government. After all, America was founded by pilgrims feeling government oppression, to establish a country where citizens could practice their faith free of government control. They made this the very first amendment of our bill of rights.
 The Mission of Healing
Bishop’s Ministry Appeal
This Sunday we are invited to make a gift to the Bishop for his work and to support the work of our Diocese. It is Bishop’s Ministry Appeal Sunday.
Leprosy
The Scriptures today speak mainly about leprosy. Leviticus is very clear: anyone with the highly contagious and incurable disease of leprosy had to “dwell apart” and could not touch or be touched by anyone. To be separated, abandoned, by every other human person—to be utterly deprived of the warmth of human touch—is the worst kind of poverty. So in the Gospel, Jesus touches the man you’re not supposed to touch. “Moved with compassion” (Jesus felt the pain this man felt) “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.” He restored the man’s dignity by touching him, by showing him understanding love.
The Mission of Healing
Why will many of us make financial gifts to the Bishop’s Appeal this Sunday? It is so that Jesus can touch the untouchables through the work of the Church. The BMA provides for things like the sisters, who bring the human touch of compassion to nearby migrant labor camps; it subsidizes poorer Catholic schools like St. George’s in South Stockton for children who could never afford a quality education; it funds the training of new priests who otherwise would not be able to afford the eight years of seminary. It provides for sisters and priests who will lay a healing hand on a modern-day leper, such as a poor immigrant family, or a forgotten grandmother in a nursing home, or a young man in one of our prisons.
Help the Church do her mission of healing
Jesus healed people. Only the Church can heal our national ills. Only the Church can fully safeguard the dignity of every human person in America. We cannot look to the Government to do this. A few years ago, someone asked President Obama when he thought human life began. He famously quipped that it was “above his pay grade.” He was absolutely right: it is not the government’s role or competency to address issues of theology, philosophy, or the deeper questions of the human person. This is the role and competency of the churches, those who train their minds on broader horizons than the government. A healthy America needs her churches, and needs a government that guarantees those churches the freedom to do what they do best. The government cannot possibly “touch” individuals with the warmth of a Mother Teresa; it cannot provide the human care that small faith-based groups regularly provide to the homeless, the incarcerated, the elderly.
Your annual gift to the BMA, like your weekly gift to the parish, provides for this good work. 25 years ago, folks like you and I gave to the Bishop’s Ministry Appeal, and that’s how I was able to become a priest. I give to the BMA every year if for nothing else than to give something back for my seminary education, and to help pay for another young man’s seminary training. Let’s all give something, simply because our Bishop has asked us for help, for the good of our Church, for the good of our country.
 I have come to serve
When I was ordained to the diaconate in December 1990, the Bishop called us each by name. “Why have you come to this place?” Each of us stood up in turn and said: “I have come to serve.” [In fact, the word “Deacon” in Greek means “one who serves.”] I have to remember those words, uttered in New York 22 years ago, when I’m tired of people and just want to be left alone in my room. All of us are happiest when we help others; we are hard wired for the stewardship of service.
In today’s gospel, Jesus is weary of the crowds and just wanted to get away by himself. The previous day the “whole town was gathered at his door.” Everyone wanted a free cure, he must’ve been exhausted. You have had days like that, perhaps, when everyone needs you to do something for them. So the next day Jesus gets up very early and goes alone to a deserted place to pray. But soon enough Peter and the others found him, and said “everyone is looking for you.” Jesus simply says, “let us go…for this purpose I have come.” He had taken his time for prayer, and now it was time to get back to work. “Prayer and work,” the rhythm of any Christian life. Mother Teresa expressed this beautifully on the little cards she would give out: “Prayer is the fruit of silence; faith is the fruit of prayer; love is the fruit of faith; service is the fruit of love.” Prayer leads us to serve others. A Christian who prays but does not serve is kind of a dud, a “failure to launch.”
Jesus cures Peter’s mother in law, and immediately she “waited on them.” And St. Paul in the second reading: “I have been entrusted with a stewardship.” Yes, each of us has been entrusted with a stewardship. In the first reading, Job complains that he cannot sleep at night, that his life is a misery. He is suffering from a long-term situational depression. Many of us go through dark periods when just getting out of bed is the greatest struggle. We’ve lost any reason to get up. That’s when we’ve got to recall those words: “I have come to serve.” Jesus calls me out of bed, even after a sleepless night, to serve the world with Him. Get up, the sun is rising, and Jesus is with us!
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