11th Sunday Ordinary Time

Mark 4:26-34

June 17

It is an experience every parent has no matter how many children theymay have or how old

We look on our children and marvel at how much they have grown.

 Around the dinner table hearing the clever words they use or watching them develop their talents we cannot help asking ourselves where they got it all.

As they learn at such a rapid pace we realize that there is something at work in them that is wider and deeper than the nurture we have provided.

Even though we cannot always take credit for it, we delight in seeing them become unique individuals before our eyes.

Just as our children grow in marvelous and often unseen ways, so God’s kingdom sends its roots deep into the earth and stretches out its branches throughout all the world.

The growth is almost unnoticeable.

Much of it takes place underground beyond what we are able to see.

Yet Jesus assures us in today’s parable that the growth is steady and sure.

Just as the smallest of seeds can become the largest of shrubs, so God’s kingdom, small and hidden as it often is, can grow to give shelter and shade to all peoples.

Jesus’ parable should give us deep peace.

When we look at our individual spiritual lives, we often can feel discouraged as we struggle with the same temptations or experience times of dryness in our prayer.

God’s will and purpose does not always seem clear.

However, through God’s grace we are growing.

Like a seed deep in the earth, it is a hidden growth.

 But it beckons us to trust in God, allow him to do his work and wait for the results.

Jesus’ parable should also give us peace as we labor in God’s vineyard.

So many of our words as catechists and preachers can seem like seed thrown into the wind.

We can look out onto a congregation with faces as expressionless as the statues on Easter Island and wonder if we are really getting through to anyone.

Are our sacrifices and efforts making any difference?

It is natural for us as humans to want to see results, and as Westerners we want to see them instantly.

Yet Jesus assures us that he is giving the growth.

We may be blessed to see the fruits of that growth from time to time, but for the most part it will take place in hidden ways requiring us to trust and wait patiently.

There are many clichés to help us try to understand the mystery of our cooperation with God’s great work of building the kingdom.

We have all heard, “God helps those who help themselves,” or, “Work as if everything depended on you and pray as if everything depended on God.”

None are as powerful as Jesus’ parable of the seed. Like a good farmer, we water the soil and tend the young plant, but it grows with a vitality and a dynamism that comes not from us but from God.

And just as the tree is vastly larger and more beautiful than its seed, so what we see around us is nothing compared to what we will see when the kingdom is in full flower.

Therefore, St. Paul’s words to us from the Second Letter to the Corinthians spell out the attitude we are to have as we tend God’s kingdom.

“We are always courageous...we walk by faith, not by sight.”

We go forth every day with our prayer and our work understanding that we will not always see them bear fruit.

We experience frustration and failure trusting that somehow it may still serve God’s purpose.

And, in the end, we entrust all our efforts to our heavenly Father with the confidence that all things will eventually be revealed before the tribunal of Christ.

Given that all this is God’s work, is there not also reason for us to rejoice?

 We can get so bogged down in our failures, our ineffectiveness, and our sin that we fail to see what God has already accomplished.

 When a child speaks her first words, our instinct is not to correct her.

Rather we laugh, encourage her, and take delight in her ability to learn.

Just so, can we trust that our heavenly Father takes delight in us though our steps may be unsteady?

Can we rest in the knowledge that we are loved and that all our needs are being provided for by a God who loves us?

Can we rejoice in what God has been able to accomplish so far with people such

as we are?

That does not mean that we blind ourselves to the real challenges or neglect the hard work that still needs to be done.

It does not mean that we become triumphalist or prideful.

 Rather, it means that we humbly see our efforts for what they are—not a means of affirming ourselves and our own goodness but a means of affirming God and his sovereignty.

Fathers see it so clearly in their children who grow into maturity and adulthood in marvelous ways.

Early in their children’s development, they may compare them to their peers and

wonder why they are not yet walking or why they do not seem to be learning to speak as quickly.

But, before long, they are chasing them down the aisles of the supermarket or telling them to shush during Mass.

Just so, we may wonder why we are so slow to grow in virtue or why our parish does not seem to be flourishing.

Can we let go of our need to manage everything and to see immediate results so as to trust that our heavenly Father is at work?

Can we take delight in what we see before us just as God surely does?

There is no more marvelous symbol of our daily struggles to tend the kingdom than the Eucharist we celebrate every Sunday.

We bring to God dry, stale bread and vinegary table wine, and he transforms it into the body and blood of Christ to nourish us on our journey.

Therefore, we can rest in peace and work with confidence.

Our heavenly Father has it all under control and is making everything work out for the salvation of the world.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Mark 14:12-16, 22-26

June 10, 2012

Have you ever been alone in a foreign place—or in a crowd of strangers—and heard your name called out?

Even though you know that the person calling your name is not calling you but someone else with the same name, you cannot help but hear it and respond in some way: lifting your eyes, drawing a breath of anticipation, turning your head toward the voice.
To be called by one's name is to be home.

And most of us have more than one name.
Most of us have a first, a middle and at least one last name.
Some of us have nicknames and pet names.
Some of us have added "confirmation" names to the names we received at the font, and some of us have "names in religion" that we accepted when professing vows.
When we love someone, there is no end to the names that we use: Honey, Love, My Sweet, Heart of My Heart.

So it is with God's people, the church. Jesus has called us by many names:

Salt of the Earth, City on a Hill, Light to the Nations.
And in the liturgy, the Spirit calls us by more intimate names.

In the liturgy, the first name that the Spirit calls the church is "The word of the Lord."

You may have thought that when the lector finishes the reading, looks at us and says "The word of the Lord," she is referring to what she just read.
She is. But she also is looking us in the eyes when she says that, because in a sense, the church is the word of the Lord, spoken today, here, now.
This is so because in Christ the word was made flesh, and in baptism our flesh is made word.

Wondrously, as if this is not endearment enough, we the church are called by holy names twice more.
When we have lifted up our hearts, when we have given thanks and praise,
when we have remembered how Christ loved us to the death and was raised up, when we have called down the Spirit,
when we have broken the bread that is body and poured out into cups the wine that is blood,
as we sing and come forward, all of us and each of us hears our two names spoken again: "The body of Christ. The blood of Christ."

Think of it!
It is not only the consecrated bread to which the minister refers when she says to you, "The body of Christ."
It is that and more. (With God, there is always more!)
It is to us, the church, that she also refers.
And it is to you, a baptized Christian, another Christ, that she says, "The body of Christ."
And it is to this action of sharing, of feeding and being food, to which she refers: The body of Christ.

To accept such a great mystery —that this bread, as ordinary as it is, has become Christ's body;
that we, as fractured a church as we are, have become Christ's body;
 that I, as unworthy as I am, have become Christ's body;
that this simple, human gesture of sharing a morsel of bread builds and sustains Christ's body—
to accept such a mystery we say with all our heart,
Amen!
Let it be done to us, to me, according to your word.
Because of this incredible mystery, our “amens” should be heard loud and clear!

And so that the body may have abundant life and be strong, strong in the face of death, another minister presents to all of us and to each of us the cup.
He says our other name: "The blood of Christ."
He speaks of this consecrated wine, he speaks of this church, of martyrs ancient and modern, he speaks of you.
He speaks of this most intimate sharing, this simple action of sharing from a common cup that so profoundly seals our destiny and changes us forever.

I may not know you, may not know your other names or the details of your struggles.
But bound to you by baptism, I take up the cup from which you have drunk,
and I, too, drink, and another one drinks after me and another one after that until all have done so.
That baptismal bond is being drawn tighter.
We are one. Your struggles are mine. Mine are yours.
And all is Christ's— including the victory.
And because of this, we stand with all until all partake.

And we are changed —and are changing.
We become Christ's body, bread broken for a world that is obese with materialism and still dying of malnutrition.
We become a leaven in the world's bread, an agent of change that helps the reign of God to rise, fragrantly, like a loaf browning in the oven.
We become Christ's blood, wine poured out in sacrifice and in celebration,
poured out for the sake of a world drowning in division and still dying of thirst,
 a thirst for union and communion.
We become the brewer's yeast, the zest that unlocks the extraordinary in the ordinary, the tingle that makes sober people giddy with joy, the sweet smell and taste of the vintage.

Such transformation, such transubstantiation—of the bread, of the wine, of you, of me, of the church, of us—
such change is possible because Christ says so: "This— and you—my body.
This— and you—the cup of my blood.
Do this and remember me."
Do this!

Made bold by this command, let us go to the table that is Christ.
Let us go and fervently pray there, "Send your Spirit upon these gifts to make them holy, that they may become" —
and by sharing them that we may be—"the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this eucharist."

Then will the Spirit whisper through the church, calling each of us and all of us by those names so dear to God:
The body of Christ. The blood of Christ.
Then we will answer as Bishop Augustine taught us to, by saying Amen to what we are.
The body of Christ.
The blood of Christ.
Amen.

The Most Holy Trinity

Matthew 28:16-20

June 3, 2012

The Trinity and how there can be three persons in one God is indeed a deep and profound mystery.

It is not possible for us to grasp or understand its full meaning.

Yet, there are many things in nature that we do not understand.

For example, we don’t understand how the color red is formed by the vibrations of ether at the rate of 130 million vibrations a second.

 If we were to count all those vibrations, it would take us more than ten thousand years!

Or who of us can explain why a magnet attracts metal?

Rather than trying to understand this profound mystery, it might be wiser for us to be more aware of God’s love and presence in our lives.

Jesus told us that whoever loves me will keep my word, and we will come and make our abode with the individual.

 God loves each one of us from all eternity as the prophet Jeremiah pointed out.

If, at times, we think we are of little value because we become aware of a fault, shortcoming, imperfection, or sin, we should not become discouraged.

God knows our faults but still continues to love us.

God knows us better than we know ourselves.

God knows the alcoholic, the teenager who can’t get along at home, the nagging or angry spouse, the widow or widower battling loneliness.

God is passionately in love with us, and as one spiritual writer expressed it, if we ever deeply experienced God’s love, we would blush.

God’s love is comparable to a beautiful friendship where a friend might tell us some good features about ourselves, but also point out a deficiency.

I once asked some seventh and eighth graders to define friendship.

One of them said, “A friend is a person who can tell you something that you can’t even tell yourself.”

The more we become aware of God’s presence in our lives and experience God’s love for us, the more we should be able to reach out to others in love.

Jesus commissions us as he did his apostles to carry on his ministry.

Jesus told his apostles to make disciples of all nations, so all social and cultural boundaries are erased, no ethnic and gender restrictions exist.

For us it means to reach out to the homeless, people with HIV virus or AIDS, immigrants.

We might feel inadequate as the apostles undoubtedly did.

It reminds me of a cartoon I saw some time ago.

 It depicted the apostles asking Jesus when he was about to leave them, if Plan A does not work, is there a Plan B?

Jesus responds, there is no Plan B!

 If we feel that same inadequacy for a job, Jesus also says to us, there is no Plan B, for you are Plan A.

 I remember a woman once telling me how she did not feel that she could accomplish a certain task.

 I reminded her of Jesus’ words, “I am with always, until the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).

These are some of the most consoling words found in Matthew’s Gospel.

We have the assurance that Jesus will be there to help us.

 Later on she told me that these words inspired her to do the task.

As we are about to recite the Creed, let it be a challenge not to figure out what consubstantial (of one being, of the same substance) means,

but to deepen our faith in this mystery of the Trinity

never doubting how much God loves us, and that Jesus is with us always until the end of the world, inspiring us to show our love to those in need.

Pentecost Sunday 2012

John 20: 19-33

May 27th, 2012

What’s gotten into you?”

This question usually stems from unacceptable behavior.

But it is an appropriate question for today’s feast.

The very people who for days, even weeks, had hidden themselves in fear for their lives, were out and about and acting in astonishing ways.

They no longer lived in secret.

 In fact, they were calling attention to themselves by their behavior.

What had gotten into them?

 “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

 It is such a simple statement, a statement that may no longer startle us!

These previously terrified people were all filled with the dynamic power of God—the power that refreshes and recreates, that comforts and heals;

This Spirit burned within them like tongues of fire, and they went forth and proclaimed the message of God’s love manifested in the resurrection of Jesus.

 This same Spirit was given to us when we were baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus and confirmed in the power of the Spirit.

If we received the same Spirit as did the disciples on that first Pentecost, why can’t we do the same marvelous deeds?

But we can.

We are assured that “to each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”

 In situations where hatred and violence prevail, kindness and gentleness are actually heroic;

Generosity is countercultural wherever greed and selfishness reign.

And how much harm might be avoided if we had a bit more patience?

 The Spirit that Jesus sent us from his Father is a Spirit of reconciliation, the Spirit that prevents us from holding grudges or nurturing vengeance.

It is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit that directs us into lives of honesty and integrity. The world in which we live is in far greater need of reconciliation and truth than of the gift of tongues.

Nations all over the world are hemorrhaging from the wounds of war;

 various religious groups live in constant fear of prejudice and persecution;

church leadership has lost much credibility among the members, and its moral voice has been muted within the broader society

 The Holy Spirit, the dynamic power of God, is bestowed on us in all fullness.

And with the Spirit come the gifts that can transform the world.

The first disciples had their day, and they seized it with a gusto that has been remembered down through the centuries.

This is our day.

We now have a chance to show others what’s gotten into us.