HOMILIES
....................................................................................
Fourth Sunday of Lent C
March 14, 2010
We find ourselves midway through the season of Lent. We are halfway to in our Lenten journey towards the Passion and Resurrection and the Church invites us to rejoice. Once again, that is the meaning of the color of the vestment (rose not pink).
But in speaking about Christian joy, I am going to distinguish it from normal joy which I am going to call happiness. Happiness goes away because the things that cause it, like winning championships, snow days, vacations, all go away. But Christian joy is based on something that never goes away: friendship with Jesus Christ. Loving Christ and being loved by Him, that is friendship with Christ. It does not change with the seasons. He is always faithful. This explains why Christians can sing hymns inside concentration camps, in prisons and on their way to death, because nothing can take away the love of Christ.
That is the joy that Church invites us to renew today. And we do need to renew it.
Most of us, if we are honest, do not always experience that joy. Why not? What is the obstacle? We have faith that is why we are here. We believe that Christ loves us. So why don’t we experience Christian joy more deeply, more consistently?
One obstacle to Christian joy is routine. It is falling into routine in our relationship with God. That is what happened to the younger son in the parable.
The younger son went looking for joy in all the wrong places because he was tired of living with his father (maybe he was “bored”). That is exactly what happens to us when we look for happiness in sin, in disobedience to God. The older son had also lost sight of the father’s goodness. He let the routine of life make him bitter. He forgot that his father was actually giving him everything.
That happens to us, also. On the outside we are good Catholics but the inside is angry and critical and so we are sometimes just going through the motions. We have let the fire go out of our relationship with Christ. Routine in our relationship with God is an obstacle to experiencing Christian joy.
The story of Saint Drithelm, not one your best known saints, is the story of an ordinary man living in England in the Middle Ages. One day he died, or so it seemed. The next morning, while his family and friends were gathered around and praying, he suddenly came back to life, freed from all the signs of the sickness that had seemed to kill him. He immediately sold all his property, divided it equally among his family and the poor, and made a request to join a local monastery. From that day on he lived for God and for others, giving good example and such good advice that conversions surrounded him.
What happened on the night of his “death” that made such an impression? God had broken him out of his routine by allowing his guardian angel to give him a tour of the life after death.
First, he was take to a valley burning on one side and frozen on the other, with souls being tossed back and forth from side to side. The angel explained that this was where souls who had repented on their deathbeds were being purified for Heaven.
Then he saw a burning pit, filled with countless people and terrible demons. It gave off a disgusting smell and bloodcurdling screams. That was hell.
Next, he was brought to a lush, green valley where thousands and thousands of people danced and laughed in little groups. Many flowers gave a delightful smell. He thought it was Heaven, but the angel told him that was where the souls who were a decent, but not excellent, Christian life went after death. There they learned the perfect love of the saints so they could eventually go to Heaven.
His last stop was on the edge of a place full of light and even more beautiful music and laughter. It made the other place seem dark and boring. The angel would not let him in there; it was Heaven, and he had to be satisfied with only a glimpse.
When he came back to consciousness, he resolved to take on a life of prayer and penance to help as many as possible gain Heaven. Routine had stifled his potential. But the vision had renewed him.
God has created each one of us to be a saint, to do great things for his Kingdom and for those around us. He wants us to know real Christian joy but our potential can be stifled by letting our friendship fall into routine.
Each of us is to be an ambassador for God’s goodness and love. In our words, actions and example, God wants others to come to know Him so they can enter into His friendship and also know joy in their lives. If each of us this week were to reach out to one prodigal son or daughter who is afraid to come home or who thinks no one cares, hundreds of lives can be touched.
And whenever we let God work through us, our friendship is deepened and so is our experience of Christian joy.
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
........................................................................................................
Third Sunday of Lent C
March 7, 2010
The comment that Jesus made about the people who had died tragically in the incident with Pilate’s soldier’s and in the collapse of the tower would have surprised those listening. Popular opinion at that time drew a direct line from people’s suffering to their personal sins. By this logic, the Galileans who were killed by Pilate’s soldiers must have deserved it. And those who were killed in the construction accident in Siloam were thought to be paying the price for their sins. But Jesus takes a different approach.
Jesus emphasizes that everyone who refuses to repent will stay separated from God. That is the symbol of the barren fig tree: the person who lacks the fruits of repentance. And if they die in such a state, and death can come at any time, they will continue that way for all eternity, “if you do not repent, you will all perish.” Even if the consequences of our actions do not always make themselves completely felt in this life, they will show up, for good or not. Tragedies here should remind us of the passing nature of this life.
This is a truth that can makes us uncomfortable but one that we are especially reminded of during Lent. We need to repent from our sins. God is always ready to forgive but we have to ask. We need to live each moment of our lives in communion with God. Repenting of our sins, trading in our self-centered habits for habits of self-giving, is necessary if we want our relationship with God to grow. It is also necessary for the rest of lives to grow.
Every sin, every thorn of selfishness that we leave festering in our hearts stunts our growth, not only as Christians, but also as human beings. Leonardo Da Vinci learned this lesson when he was painting his famous “Last Supper.”
While he was working on the painting, he had a bitter argument with another painter, an enemy that he had disliked for a long time. To vent his anger, Da Vinci used that artists face as a model for the face of Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus. He felt a sense of evil satisfaction in coming with this idea that everyone would recognize and would last for centuries. As he worked on the faces of the other apostles, he often tried to paint the face of Jesus but he could not make any progress. He made progress in painting all the figures except Jesus, the most important one. And he became more and more frustrated. In time he realized what was wrong. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from painting the face of Jesus. It kept him from being able to see Jesus clearly. Only after making peace and repainting the face of Judas was he able to paint the face of Jesus and complete the masterpiece. We are not made for sin and selfishness. Sorrow for sins and repentance frees us to see Christ and to become all that we are created to be. We all need to be reminded of the necessity of sorrow and repentance. We should also pray for those who did not come to Mass this weekend. They need to know it too. As Catholics, we have a very clear, concrete way to repent as often as we need to. It’s called “going to Confession.”
In this sacrament, when we do it from the heart, we return to the arms of our loving God, hiding nothing, freely admitting our need for Him. Confession opens our souls wide to Christ’s grace. It gives Him room to work in our lives. In Confession Jesus purifies our hearts, heals our wounds and enlightens our minds. Confession gives us the assurance of God’s forgiveness and the grace that we need. It is God’s gift to us just as Baptism and the Eucharist. It is there for us to use since He wants it to be easy for us to come back to Him, to repent and to live in relationship with God. He wants us to hear the words of forgiveness not just in our imagination but with our ears. You can find the schedule for Confessions from now until Easter in this week’s bulletin and the bulletin is also on line. Last week, I suggested we choose one thing to do during Lent as a preparation for Easter. I hope that is working. This week, I will say that none of us will be fully prepared without a good and heartfelt Confession.
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
........................................................................................................
Second Sunday of Lent C
February 28, 2010
One of the problems Saint Paul was dealing with in his letter to the Philippians was some who believed that Christians still had to follow all the regulations of the Old Testament. They included complex dietary rules which is why Paul writes that “Their God is their stomach.” He says that they are putting those who put their hope in these external regulations are “enemies of the cross of Christ.” Not one to mince words! We may think that none of this applies to us since we are not even remotely tempted to follow all those rules, but it does apply to us.
They liked the external regulations because those rules were under their control. They could use them to measure their holiness by how well they kept them. We can be tempted to do the same thing, to measure our worth by our achievements and appearances — by things we can control. But that is not where true holiness comes from.
True holiness comes from having “our citizenship in heaven.” That means following the law of Heaven, which is the law of Christ, the law of love of God and neighbor, an interior law. To follow Christ, in other words, we have to give up control. It is no longer our achievements that matter; it is our trusting obedience to Christ. We cannot save ourselves no matter how hard we try. So what God asks is for us to trust Him completely, to give Him a blank check.
We have to ask ourselves if we are trying to get by with small payments or have we given all to Jesus.
The issue of control is a common theme in literature because it’s such a fundamental issue in everyone’s relationship with God. One example is found in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It is all about control or surrender. The ring of power which the hobbit Bilbo finds underneath a mountain is a symbol of control. It makes the one who wears it invisible allowing eavesdropping, stealing and sneaking. It also gives its owner long life and the power to enslave others. But the ring always ends up ruling over the person who tries to use it.
The spiritual life is similar. Every sin is based in asserting selfish power. The businessman who lies to get a contract signed is dominating another person. The neighbor who spreads gossip is trying to be superior at the expense of someone else. These sins which seem to increase our power and offer us greater freedom actually turn us into slaves. In fact, every time we sin, we become more addicted to power. We become less free to choose as our selfish urges take over our lives. Just as whoever used the ring of power fell more and more under its influence.
The only path to true freedom, as Saint Paul teaches, is to surrender the desire to dominate, to be like God. We must surrender to Christ, letting Him be God and obeying His will. We have to throw our hopes for happiness into the fire of His love just as the ring had to be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom.
How can we learn to surrender control, to give everything to Christ as He wants and needs? Saint Paul gives us one way. He encourages us to stop occupying our minds with “earthly things” and to become more aware that “citizenship is in heaven.” That takes time and effort and is only possible by prayer. Without often going up the mountain with Jesus to pray, like Peter, James and John, we will never learn to see ourselves and this world from a truly Christian perspective.
We all need to improve our life of prayer. We just have to choose a way, a concrete activity that we can do to give Jesus the opportunity to speak to our hearts.
It might be to read a good book on the spiritual life before Easter. You could download a daily meditation online everyday (www.regnumchristi.org). Learn and practice a new devotion or return to an old one, perhaps the rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Carve out 15 minutes a day to read the Bible or simply to sit in silence.
Jesus is waiting for us to surrender and to trust in Him so that He can fill us with His grace and lead us to the happiness we long for. Today let’s at least take out the check book even if we are not ready to sign a blank one. Let’s not leave here without committing to go up a notch in prayer before the next week is out. If we give Him that much today, He will be able to give us much more tomorrow.
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
........................................................................................................
First Sunday of Lent C
February 21, 2010
C. S Lewis wrote a spiritual classic on the temptations of the devil. It is called The Screwtape Letters. It is a collection of messages from Screwtape, an experienced tempter, to his nephew and apprentice Wormwood. Lewis writes from the perspective of the tempter about what works to draw humans away from the One that Screwtape calls the “Enemy.” That is God. In one of the letters, Screwtape writes, “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.”
On the First Sunday of Lent the Church always gives us the temptations of Jesus in the desert. This year we hear about them from Saint Luke. It really is very good news for us since we are always challenged by temptations. The Letter to the Hebrews says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin” (4:15). Christ sympathizes with our weaknesses and He shows today how our weaknesses will not be overcome by temptation. He wins the victory for us against every temptation.
How does Jesus win the victory for us? It can be described in several ways. One can be seen through the use of memory. If it is true that the tempter’s best work is done by keeping things out of our minds, as C.S. Lewis says, then it is also true that the Lord’s best work is done by putting something in our minds. In each of the temptations, Jesus recalls Scripture as the best defense against the devil. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 after the first temptation and Deuteronomy 6:13 after the second. The devil seems to have caught on and so he quotes twice from Psalm 91 to tempt Jesus the third time. (Even the devil can quote Scripture!) Then Jesus returns again to Deuteronomy (6:16). That time the devil “departed from him for a time.”
Memory plays an important part in our relationship with God. The first reading is from the same book that Jesus quotes, Deuteronomy. The name means “the second law.” It is a remembering given in the form of Moses reflecting near the end of his life before the people enter the Promised Land. It tells the people to remember how they were once aliens in Egypt. How after being maltreated and oppressed, they cried to the Lord and He heard their cries. He brought them out of Egypt with signs and wonders and brought them to the Promised Land. Memory is the motivation for them to give thanks. How can we give thanks if we do not remember God’s goodness? In the same way, in the second reading from the Letter to the Romans, Saint Paul recalls the Lordship of Jesus and how He was raised from the dead. How can we confess that Jesus is Lord if we don’t remember the power of the Resurrection? Having a memory formed by Scripture can transform our state of mind from temptations to giving thanks and confessing our faith in Christ.
How does this relate to the First Sunday of Lent for us? We often think about what we give up for Lent, which is a good thing. But now is a time to think not so much of chocolate, TV or meat as overcoming temptation to sin. Every temptation is a narrowing of reality. It takes some good and highlights it in disproportion to the whole. By God’s grace, we want our memory to be equipped to withstand temptation because we remember the whole of God’s goodness. Then temptation collapses into a single moment seen under a single spotlight. Our memory can help us realize that temptation is too small; it is not enough for us.
This remembering can be done in many ways. It might mean memorizing some short verses of Scripture for times of temptation. For example, “God come to my assistance. Lord make haste to help me” is the beginning of Psalm 70 a prayer for help in time of trial. We may not have a particular passage to remember but we remember Jesus Christ and His victory over temptation.
There are all sorts of things to remember to help in times of temptation: God’s love; the promise of Heaven; the final judgment. We might remember what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: ‘The Son of God…loved me and gave himself for me’” (478; Gal. 2:20).
When the devil tries to keep things out of our minds, we can have our memory filled with Christ!
The material in this homily has already been copyrighted and so may not otherwise be published or copied. It is for personal use only.
Rev. Gerald F. Mullally
Saint Patrick’s Church
Milford, Pennsylvania
....................................................................................