The Holy Family

 (This is an update of a homily I gave on this feast day to a group of sisters from the USA during a pilgrimage they made to Rome.)

The good news of Christmas continues to unfold; the mystery of the incarnation continues to reveal itself. Today we are given to contemplate Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, as a member of a family – the Holy Family – together with Mary and Joseph.

Assumption

The dogma of the Assumption of Mary was defined by Pope Venerable Pius XII on November 1, 1950 with the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus. Deus, meaning God, of course, and munificentissimus, meaning most munificent. Generous, bountiful. We don’t use the word munificent much, though thanks to Disney we know maleficent. But this world could use less maleficence and more munificence, am I right?

And as we shall see, this great feast recalls and celebrates God’s bountiful generosity towards us, his human creature.

The dogma of the Assumption teaches “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”

Mary’s Assumption at the end of her earthly life goes together with the mystery of its very beginning, that of the Immaculate Conception. Just as in her Immaculate Conception Mary was preserved, from the first moment of her conception, from Original Sin, so at the end of her life it is fitting that she be preserved by the same special privilege from the death and bodily decay which is one of the lingering effects of the same sin. So, at the end of her earthly life, Mary did not die in the same way we will, but was assumed into heaven, body and soul.

This can seem like something very marvelous, and indeed it is, but it is the destiny for which we hope as well; as we say in the Apostle’s Creed, we believe in the ‘resurrection of the body.’ We Christians believe that at the time of the General Judgment our souls will be reunited with our bodies, transformed into what St. Paul calls the ‘glorified body.’

And just as the body of the Risen Lord after his Resurrection is the same body that was Jesus of Nazareth in his earthly life, though glorified and possessing certain new, spiritual characteristics – appearing in locked rooms for example – so our soul will be reunited with our body at the end of time, the same body which is ours in this life but also new and glorified.

Now we admit that we don’t know exactly how all of this will work; it is a matter of our faith, of the faith of the Church.

And so our faith is also our hope. That as the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed into the glory of heaven, body and soul, so one day we will find ourselves in the eternal, happy rest of beholding God in our body, glorified in the Christ who has saved us and through his Resurrection opened for us the path to this most blessed destiny. May our hope for heaven, for the full vision of the bountiful generosity of God, be our strength and our joy as we continue on the pilgrimage of this life.

Being Invited and Saving the Party

(2nd Sunday, C)

We arrive, brothers and sisters, at the start of another cycle of Sundays in Ordinary Time, and for this beginning we hear from St. John the beginning of Jesus’ “signs.” The account of the wedding at Cana is so full of spiritual truth and good news for us that a preacher might hardly know where to begin. The story speaks not only of the gospel of Jesus’ compassion and humility, but also of the exciting news of the possibility of transformation and new destiny that all creatures have in Christ. So for fear of preaching forever, I’ll limit myself to two points of good news for us today.

First, we shouldn’t miss the simple truth that Jesus accepts invitations. Jesus was invited to the wedding, and he showed up. That’s good news for all of us, because we can be confident that if we invite the presence of God in Christ into our lives, our prayer, and our troubles, we can be assured that Jesus will be there. Jesus accepts invitations. His disciples accept invitations too; they too were at the wedding. So if we wish to be disciples of the Lord we have to be ready to accept the invitations we receive to enter into the joys, griefs, and chaos of others. To be unmoved by the suffering of others or unable to rejoice in the joy of another is an almost certain sign of sin.

Second, Jesus saves the party. Why didn’t his hapless couple have enough wine? Poverty? Poor planning? Too many wedding crashers? We don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Jesus (at the invitation of his mother we might add) saves the party by providing new wine. Jesus saves the party so that the newlyweds and their guests may rejoice on this most special occasion. Jesus makes up for their lack, whatever it was, so that their joy could be full.

So it is with us, brothers and sisters. We must never fear our own lacking in what we need to be faithful to God or to flourish in the vocations God has given us. The sign Jesus works today shows us that if we seek the presence of Jesus Christ and the intercession of his mother, whatever way we lack can be an opportunity for the revelation of the glory of God through Christ. So if we ever feel that we don’t have what we need, let us turn to Jesus through Mary and we will soon find that our lack is changed into the glorious and superabundant grace of God. The water not only became wine, but the best wine. If we invite Jesus into our lives we can be assured that our souls too will blush into the new wine that gives joy to the heart. May the same transforming grace come upon every place in our hearts and lives where we feel dull, tired, and plain, so that the joy and delight of God himself might shine through us, making each of us into revealers of the Father’s glory.

The Visitation

(4th Sunday of Advent, C)

We are very close, friends, to the great mystery of our salvation, to the great mystery of the Eternal Word made flesh, to the birth of the Lord. We’re not quite yet there — but nevertheless, today we rejoice in expectation with two great mothers, with Mary and Elizabeth, the mothers of John the Baptist, greatest of Israel’s prophets, and Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the Christ, the Son of God.

Since today’s Gospel is the story of the Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, I was recalling when I was first learning to pray the Rosary. I had one of those little pamphlets with the prayers written out and a diagram of what to say on each of the beads. This was before the new “luminous mysteries,” so there were only the original fifteen mysteries arranged in a little chart. For each mystery there was a little picture, a verse from Scripture, and something called the “fruit” of the mystery. I was never sure what was meant by the “fruit” of the mystery, but I guessed, I think correctly, that it was the virtue or disposition in yourself that would be strengthened by the meditation on each mystery.

Now when it came to the second joyful mystery, the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, the Gospel story we hear today, the fruit of the mystery was listed as “charity.” So I would like to reflect a little with you today about how entering into this mystery of the Visitation, together with Mary and Elizabeth, can help us to grow in the love of God, of the charity we have toward one another.

First of all, we adore and celebrate these beautiful mysteries of the Christmas season, and as well we should. But we always need to go further, and enter into the mysteries of faith with our own hearts, and with our own hands and feet too. In other words, God invites all of us to be Marys and Elizabeths for each other.

Mary, of course, is “blessed among women” as Elizabeth cries out. She is the mother of God and the mother of the church. Even more, she has been the mother of every one of the Lord’s disciples, including us, ever since Jesus gave her to us as our mother from the Cross. To take two of her titles from the Litany of Loreto, she is the “gate of heaven” and the “spiritual vessel” through which God becomes Incarnate in this world. She is, in her great Greek title, the Theotokos, she who bears God into the world. And friends, it is us who are called to continue her vocation of bearing Christ into the world – us, the Church!

St. Francis called Mary the Virgo ecclesia facta, the Virgin made church, and what an insight! Just as Mary bore the Incarnate Word, the Son of God into the world, so we, the Church, are called to continue to make Christ real in the darkness of this world. Mary is the Church and the Church is Mary – we continue her great “yes” to God by bringing Jesus Christ to birth in our faith and in the love we put into practice for the sake of each other and for the world.

So let’s go ahead and imitate Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth. The great gift of faith that we carry in our hearts, the love of God that inspires our actions, let’s take it to each other. We see a lot of people this time of year, and like Mary, we often see family and relations we might not visit with often. Let’s bear the love of Christ to them, just as Mary did for her cousin Elizabeth. Though you can, you don’t have to preach it out loud – you preach just as much by your attitudes of gentleness, forgiveness, and care. And if those you are with have eyes to see your faith and ears to hear you words as the love of God, they will bless God on your behalf just as Elizabeth did and say, “how does this happen to me, that mother of my Lord should come to me?”

And so that brings us to Elizabeth, to the other half of this mystery of the Visitation, to the other part of our learning of God’s charity. Just as we are called to continue Mary’s work in the world, we must also learn to do as Elizabeth did. We must bear the love of Christ to one another, for sure. But we also learn how to graciously receive the love that others bring us, to accept the humility and vulnerability of letting other people love us with the love of Christ.

Remember how Elizabeth felt the infant John the Baptist leap in her womb when she heard Mary’s greeting. In his commentary on Luke St. Ambrose writes: “Elizabeth is the first to hear Mary’s voice, but John is the first to be aware of grace. She hears with the ears of the body, but he leaps for joy at the meaning of the mystery.”

So it needs to be with us. When anyone bears love to us, when anyone greets us with kindness or forgiveness or gentleness, we must go beyond just seeing and hearing them with our bodily eyes and ears. Through our faith we must perceive, like John the Baptist, the love of God, the charity of Christ that is being borne to us by someone else.

It could be the long-suffering love and care of our family members. It could be the forgiveness of someone we’ve hurt long ago, or over and over. It might just be the smile or kind word of a stranger on the street, or the delight and wonder in the eyes of a child. In all of these we must, with our eyes and ears of faith, see the love of Christ that is being brought into the world. And then we can say with Elizabeth, “how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Let’s let Jesus open our eyes of faith, that we may notice some of the many chances we have in a day to continue Mary’s great “yes,” and bear the love of Christ into the world. And let us imitate Elizabeth by glorifying God for the many ways God uses the people around us to show us his love and care.

Merry Christmas, everyone. The Son of God, the Eternal Word of the Father, desires nothing more than to be born anew into this world. He’s literally dying to be born. The Eternal Love that is Christ wants nothing more than to be born into the dank caves of our hearts and the messy stables of our lives. Like our mother Mary, let us accept him with faith, and, like our sister Elizabeth let us rejoice with those who share his love with us.

The Gospel of Prosperity

Once in a while I see a preacher on TV or hear one on the radio. And I think, well, maybe I’ll listen for a minute; who knows? Maybe I’ll learn something about how to preach. Often what I hear, though, it bothers me. I’m bothered because often what I hear is what they call “the Gospel of prosperity.”

This teaching says that if you honor God and confess that Jesus is Lord, God will bless you. Now I hardly dispute this in itself, but the blessings they talk about are always materialistic. By honoring God and praying in a certain way, God will bless you with money and houses and cars and economic security for you and your family.

Now I just don’t think this kind of doctrine stands up to Sacred Scripture. In Luke’s Gospel, which we are proclaiming this year, Jesus says quite plainly, “blessed are you poor” and “woe to you who are rich.” In fact the whole of Sacred Scripture is a testament to God’s special love for the poor and the oppressed, for the stranger and the widow and the orphan. In the Church’s evening prayer every single day none other than our Blessed Mother herself proclaims and blesses God, who has

Cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly [and who] has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

Perhaps one of the greatest correctives to this so-called “Gospel of prosperity” comes in our Gospel reading for today. Peter, James, and John are business partners, and they aren’t having a good day. As they say, they “have worked hard all night and have caught nothing.”

But after they try again on the advice of Jesus, they catch an astonishing amount of fish; so many in fact that they’re nets begin to tear. So far so good for the “Gospel of prosperity;” they honor and obey the Lord and material success follows. But then the story changes.

Rather than sit back and enjoy their new, God-given prosperity, this huge catch of fish that makes their business a success, Peter, James and John decide instead to leave it all to follow Jesus. They leave the fish, their boats, their sudden prosperity, and follow Jesus into a life of uncertainty, danger, and homelessness. Why? If God blesses us with so much success in our business, be it fishing or whatever, aren’t we supposed to stay home and appreciate it?

Peter, James and John see beyond the huge catch of fish. They see through the material success to a Savior who is much more than a material benefactor. This Presence of the saving God is Blessing Itself--and much more valuable than the material blessings we may or may not receive from him. And so, seeing through the catch of fish to the blessing of God beyond, Peter, James and John found themselves brave enough to leave the catch behind to follow the divine Presence itself that they perceive in the man Jesus.

And this is what we are called to do. Whatever God has blessed us with, whether it be “time, talent, or treasure” as we say here in the offertory, or whether it be a gentle heart or a generous disposition or even just an infectious smile, God has not given us these things so that we might enjoy them for ourselves, but so that we might in turn bless each other with them.

In Jesus Christ, God has given away everything it means to be God, and has lavishly bestowed upon us every blessing of the divine life. And we are called to imitate God by wasting the best of ourselves on each other, to give of ourselves for the life and happiness of the other. That’s what it means to give up your life for the life of the world, just like Jesus does on the Cross.

Now this is a tall order, and it takes a lot of trust on our part. In fact, we almost always resist the idea and balk at the little inspirations of the Holy Spirit. But we shouldn’t be surprised or ashamed of this. Peter, the first among the apostles, his first response to the Lord was to ask Jesus to leave, for, as Peter said, “I am a sinful man.” And Isaiah, greatest of the prophets, he cried out in response to the call of God, “Woe is me, I am doomed!”

But they changed their minds, and pretty quickly. In fact, the term the New Testament often uses for conversion, the Greek word metanoia, simply means, literally, to change your mind. And God is there to strengthen us and to help us change our hesitant minds too.

Isaiah is strengthened after an angel touches his mouth with an ember taken from God’s heavenly altar. And it can be the same with us. Except the burning coal that will touch our lips is the Holy Communion we receive here at Mass. The Body of Christ we receive is the burning love of God for the world, the passion of God for our well-being and salvation. The burning love of God we receive into our very bodies in Holy Communion, it purges our wickedness, strengthens us in our hesitations, and forgives our sins.

So let us receive the Body of Christ with great faith and gratitude. For it is the burning ember of love that will enable us to respond to the call of God to give of ourselves, our communion in the Body of Christ is the strength we need to respond to God in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Here I am. [Lord] Send me!”

(5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, C)