Advent trains us to be better deer hunters.... AND better followers of Jesus Christ!

+ J. M. J. +

Draft Homily for the First Sunday of Advent, Year B (Readings here)

In recent days, many of us here have spent some time in a deer blind… you get bundled up, you sneak quietly to the blind, and you take up your position. Maybe you’ve got some shooting lanes cleared out, maybe you’ve got some bait out… maybe you’ve been checking pictures on your game camera. And then you wait, and you try to keep every sense taut with expectation!

My dad helping me get my deer blind ready...

I was sitting in my confessional in Bessemer (at my last assignment, St. Sebastian Parish), one day, listening to the building creak, and hoping that someone would come to confession, and it reminded me of something… and I realized that it was like sitting in a deer blind! Sometimes you hear the leaves rustle noisily, and you’re sure it’s a monster buck… and then it’s just a cheeky little red squirrel! In Bessemer I’d be getting all ready to dispense the Lord’s mercy, and then it would just be the building settling!

This is the theme of our Gospel today, as we begin the Advent season… Watch! Be Watchful! Be Alert! This is a continuation of our November theme of death and the end of time… The Church wants us to always be connected and rooted in reality, that this life and world will pass away, that we have here no lasting home… that we are created for a better and more perfect life than this mortal life. As we begin Advent, we are certainly preparing to celebrate Christmas… but we also have much bigger fish to fry! Our reading today are focused much more on Jesus’ Second Coming than on His first… We are to watch not just for Dec. 25th, with all the rich blessings of that feast, but even more for what God is doing now, in our lives!

When you try to sit quietly in a deer blind, you face a number of challenges… I often fall asleep, especially at first. I suspect I may not be the only one to wake suddenly, slumped forward in the blind, unable to see out, and you hear a twig snap. Suddenly you’re completely awake, and you have to move oh-so-slowly to look and see… and then it’s often just that same pesky squirrel! When we sit still, when we try to watch and wait and be alert… it’s easy to get sleepy, to get distracted, to get drowsy… we’re not used to silent and focused observation, we’re used to doing and thinking and being entertained, constant noise, constant motion…

Coming in from the deer blind on a cold clear morning...

This is why the Church slows down the liturgy a bit during Advent: we abstain from the Gloria so that we can hear the words of the angels fresh on Christmas. We’re beginning to use the antiphons this year, so we can listen attentively to choirs’ voices and the words so carefully chosen by the Church for us. We process out in silence… which is awkward and uncomfortable… but potentially very fruitful!

What happens when you get past being drowsy in your blind? You begin to notice a whole bunch of stuff that you don’t normally notice! You hear the wind blow, or a raven’s wings as it flaps overhead… you can hear the difference between a woodpecker and a nuthatch as they look for insects in the bark. You can hear snowflakes falling on dry leaves, and the wind moving pine needles. You can hear a twig snap, and the leaves rustle… and you hope it’s the big one!

When you begin to focus in the blind, especially at dawn and dusk, you often see or hear things that aren’t there! You imagine a stump into the 30-point-Buck… or a branch into a wolf. You stare at something for minutes on end, not quite sure what it is… you stare at the head of a feeding or watching deer, trying to grow antlers!

This can happen in our hearts, too! We won’t fully understand and discern and see what God has done, and what He’s doing, and what He calls us to at first glance. We may initially notice a movement or desire that has to be discerned and confirmed and purified. I will be spending a lot of time helping young men do this as I take on the vocations work, but this applies to all of us. We have to listen for a while to understand what’s there…

And when we do slow down and listen, just like in that deer blind, we will begin to garner insight and self-knowledge. This can happen in our spiritual lives, in our relationships, in our families… if we’ll slow down and listen, we’ll begin to see and hear a bunch of stuff that’s been there all along, but that we’ve been too busy to notice. We might hear something in a loved one’s tone of voice that makes us wonder how they’re doing… we might notice something in our heart that gives us cause for thanksgiving… or maybe something that makes us aware of our need to repent. If we really pay attention, we will begin to notice the movement of the Holy Spirit deep in our hearts and souls, God drawing the deep lasting desires of our hearts towards Himself.

This dynamic certainly didn’t begin with Jesus, even though it did reach its fulfillment and perfection in Him. The prophets spoke to the People of Israel, calling them to this listening and insight. Isaiah called the people to repentance and watchfulness:

Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.

He also reminded the people of God’s grace at work in them:

O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.

Both pieces are there… as we listen and look within, as we become alert and watchful, we will notice our need for God’s mercy… and we will become aware of great cause for peace, and praise, and thanksgiving!

So how to be watchful and alert this Advent? This can be a training ground not just for Christmas, but for the rest of our lives! I highlighted four simple steps in the bulletin… no surprises here:

1. Pray EVERY day… and take a step deeper! We have our Magnificat Advent Companions with a daily devotion… just one good too
2. Prepare the Sunday Mass… read the readings in advance, pray with them, read the antiphons… the more you prepare, the more you’ll receive. Come early enough to sit still, and quiet yourself, and prepare. You can always find the readings online here.
3. Make a good confession… nothing cleans out your spiritual ears so effectively as the Sacrament of Penance… maybe it’s a little gross, but it’s like a really effective spiritual Q-tip!
4. Share what you have with those in need… many concrete ways available to do that.

That’s definitely not an exhaustive list… but it each one of us watchfully uses those simple disciplines, I guarantee we’ll be better hunters… I mean more faithful followers of Jesus Christ, who comes to us now on this altar!

+ A. M. D. G. +

The Shepherd Judges by Love

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Year A

We stand, this Sunday, at the threshold between one liturgical year and the next, and the liturgy offered to us by the Church is meant to shape and structure our time, our lives, and the way we look at and understand the world around us. We are reminded that Jesus is our Lord and King, our Savior and Redeemer… King not just of Christians, but of the whole universe, of all creation! As King He is also Judge… but not only Judge, but also Shepherd. Our readings on this feast give us both images, with the creative tension that lies between them.

Sometimes we think the Old Testament presents God as harsh and stern, while the New Testament instead shows God to be tender and loving. However, these stereotypes, or even prejudices, have little to do with the text itself!  Our readings this Sunday run the opposite way! Our first reading today, from the Prophet Ezekiel, is full of tenderness and promise. Soon it will be Advent… think of just how God fulfilled His words spoken through the prophet:

I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy, shepherding them rightly.

It’s not like God didn’t tell us what He was going to do! And, yet, when He came Himself, it was a surprise, and so hard to accept and believe! God is not far away, distant, uninvolved, and unconcerned… rather He came Himself, in the Flesh… Jesus Christ, both God and man.

When we proclaim Christ the King of the Universe, we remember that He rules all that is, not from afar, and not by violent acts of power, but rather He rules at our sides, gently, drawing us by love. He speaks softly to the voice of our consciences, He speaks with beauty and splendor in every sunrise and ever snowflake, He speaks kindly with His invitation to mercy and truth.

Much of this movement of the King happens in our hearts, below the surface, in the quiet of listening prayer… and this gentle powerful King allows us to stray, rather than force us to follow. He knows that straying will bring us to grief, that His commandments point us towards joy and peace, and away from bitterness and sadness. We who know Him and His love struggle to listen attentively… how is the world to know of His love, when so often they aren’t even trying to listen? How is He to speak in a world full of noise and hurry?

This brings us to the scene of Judgment in our Gospel. When people speak as if Jesus doesn’t care what we do and say… as if His unconditional love means that following Him makes no demands on us… I get frustrated! Whoever that guy is, it’s not Jesus Christ they’re talking about! The same tender persistent shepherd who cares and heals His sheep will also sit upon his glorious throne and separate the nations as they come before Him! Jesus uses no hidden surprising criteria to judge us… it’s exactly what He’s told us, exactly what God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai… we will be judged on whether or not we have followed the commandment to love! (Repeat) Let that sink in and root itself in your heart… each one of us will stand before the throne of our Loving Shepherd, He who laid down His life for us, and we will be judged, separated, upon a simple criteria… did we respond with loving generosity to those in need around us? Did we give away what we were given, or did we hoard it to ourselves? Did we treat others as Christ, or did we ignore and disdain to share God’s blessings?

Now… it’s worth noting… this isn’t the only chapter of Scripture! Jesus teaches a lot more than is contained in this one passage… He told us to keep the commandments, and He didn’t kick any off the list.  As we look into our hearts, we know we have often fallen short. Where, then, does the grace and wisdom come to love? What sustains us in giving of ourselves? It is God at work in us… through the Eucharist and Confession, through our Daily Prayer. How is the world to know of these gifts and these commands? Through us! God’s living active presence in the world didn’t end when Jesus ascended into heaven… it’s continued in our midst by the life of the Church… that’s us, as surprising as that may be! We’re God’s big plan… that we who know Him, His love, His mercy, His grace, His commands… that we would live and model these truths, and invite others to them as well. If the world is not full of love, we need look nowhere else but in the mirror… we have been given the gift of faith, baptism, grace, the Living Word, the Word made Flesh, our parish… so many rich blessings!

May we follow our King, then, may we obey Him, in laying down our lives. On Saturday morning we packed up 30 food baskets for local families… that happened due to the generosity and hard work of many of our parishioners. In the days ahead, we’ll be gathering with family… our inlaws and outlaws!  Love those who are nearby, even when it's hard.  If there’s money in your checking account or food on your shelf… give some away to those in need! Whether you have things to give away or not… give yourself! Listen to a relative or friend, give someone a call, take them out to lunch or offer a Rosary for them. There is no end to the concrete ways we can love and serve today… this is what Jesus calls us to now. Never allowing us to get ahead of Him, He gives Himself to us now, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, from this altar… receiving Him, we receive everything… may we give it all away!

+ A. M. D. G. +

Bulletin Column on Purgatory: A joyful, hope-filled expression of God's LOVE

+ J. M. J. + 

 Bulletin Column on Purgatory, All Souls' Day, 2 Nov. 14
(I've been wanting to write this up for a while, and this isn't perfect, but perhaps it's helpful!)

We’ve really had a lot of stuff falling on Sundays this year, and here we go again! This Sunday the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, commonly called “All Souls’ Day,” takes the place of the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time, while next Sunday the beautiful Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica takes the place of the 32nd Sunday. This is a rich gift, because it gives us a chance to celebrate these liturgies with our larger weekend congregations!

November begins with All Saints’ Day, a joyful pouring out of praise to God for all those who have served Him with heroic charity, modeling and living holiness in their concrete circumstances (including formally canonized saints, and all the saints known to God). All Souls’ Day, in contrast, is the moment par excellence dedicated to the beautiful dogma of purgatory. What’s that you say, we still believe in Purgatory?!?!? Well… for a while it was “out of fashion,” but of course what’s true doesn’t fluctuate according to people’s tastes! It seems that some people thought purgatory was kind of dark and heavy, and perhaps they encountered some vividly detailed descriptions of the pains of purgatory, and it all seemed a little over the top. Let’s try to set the context, using as I mentioned last week, the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. We’re all going to die… not the words of a pessimist, just the truth. Our mortal lives will come to an end. We can admit what is true and deal with it or pretend! Upon death we come before the Judgment Seat… and after that moment of death, there’s a lot that is mysterious. We use physical images to speak of spiritual realities that God in His wisdom has not spelled out in detail. The outline is firm and clear, the details mysterious. So, the “Judgment Seat” of Christ uses what we know about judges and courts, but if we try to pin down how that seat’s upholstered (or forget that while judgment is certain, whether or not Jesus will be sitting in a chair is not), then we go beyond God’s Revelation, and the Church’s teaching.

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently says, at the moment of our death either we will say to God, “Thy will be done,” or God will say to us, “Thy will be done.” A person is only sent to Hell by his or her own obstinate choice to refuse God’s mercy. In love, God doesn’t force Himself, His Grace, His Mercy upon us, and if we refuse it definitively, then He allows us to spend eternity away from Him. It should be a terrifying prospect… and so we should turn away from sin, and towards God. Who’s in Hell? We don’t know… the Church makes no positive declaration that any particular person is damned, but we do know Hell exists, and we know our loving Savior talked about it with some frequency… we’ve been warned!

If by His grace we say “Yes” to the Lord, that yes, however incomplete, opens the door to His mercy, and He brings us into His presence. However, God loves us too much to leave us half full of lies and sin… precisely because He is perfect mercy, He lovingly purifies us of all attachment to sin, all the temporal effects of sin. Think of a mother wiping the dirt off her son’s face as he comes in from playing, so that he can be presented to guests. Think of a physical therapist leading a patient through the painful repetitions that lead back towards walking… think of Jesus asking Peter three times, “Do you love me?” As we try to imagine what that purification or purgatory is like, we enter into imagery that is not literal, and here we might well admit that some of the lurid imagery of the past may not be particularly helpful!

Everyone in Purgatory, each soul being purified, knows that he or she is going to spend eternity with God, perfectly united with Him in joy and peace, and this is why we speak of the “Holy Souls in Purgatory.” Nonetheless, that purification is probably not pleasant, anymore than having your face wiped or your newly replaced knee bent is… anymore than Peter “enjoyed” affirming his love three times to heal his three denials. And how does time or duration play a role? Well, having died, the soul is separated from the body and outside of time, so “spending a long time” in purgatory is a metaphor that’s hard to make precise. It is obvious that someone whose life has been dedicated to sin and selfishness may need “more” purification than someone who had one small bad habit they never overcame, but God hasn’t chosen to spell that all out. The images from the saints and theologians try to express these mysteries, and we may find them more or less helpful.

Thus we remember the Living Body of Christ in all its fullness: we the Church Militant, engaged in the battle of earthly life; the Church Suffering, being purified by God’s love; and the Church Triumphant, joyfully singing God’s praises before His Throne! On this All Souls’ Day we remember our solidarity with the whole Church as we offer our prayers for all the Faithful Departed, asking God to receive them into His Kingdom, where they will in turn pray for us!

   + A. M. D. G. +

Black is Beautiful: An All Souls' Day Reflection on Purgatory

+ J. M. J. + 

Homily Outline for the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed  

(All Souls' Day) 2 Nov 2014

 Every year we enter into November, the last month of the liturgical year, with two beautiful feasts… on November 1st, All Saints’ Day, and on Nov. 2nd, All Souls’ Day! The Church makes use of the natural symbols of the year's end, at least in the northern hemisphere... the shortening days, the cold, the first snows... us gardeners are making our final harvests (I picked my parsnips yesterday!) In the course of the years, about every 7 years it falls on Sunday, and we celebrate this liturgy in the place of our normal Sunday liturgy. This gives us a beautiful chance to reflect on the significance of this feast!

To set the context for All Souls’ Day, let me remind of you of a traditional way of thinking about all those who make up the Church, the Living Body of Christ. We can divide the Church up into three pieces: first, the Church Militant, that is, all us who are living, engaged in the daily battle of earthly life. We call it the Church Militant not because it is violent, but because life is truly a struggle. Then we have those who have already entered into the Father’s Glory, who we celebrated with All Saints’ Day, the Church Triumphant, or Glorious! Countless men, women, and children, some of them canonized, who see God Face to Face, who sing His praises, who experience the perfect joy of Heaven. The group in-between, so to speak, is the group we pray for today on All Souls’ Day… the Church Suffering, or the Church Penitent… all those souls in Purgatory. Just as we are united by ties of love and prayer with all those living the mortal life, and with all those living the eternal life, we are also united with those who are being purged and purified. We ask the saints to pray for us, and we in turn pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

I discuss this at some length in my bulletin column, which I hope you'll read, but let me just briefly mention that the Catholic Church absolutely believes in the existence of purgatory… it was not fashionable to say so, and many people have been falsely taught otherwise, but this is the firm, dogmatic teaching of the Church.

What is purgatory all about? Well… it’s all about God’s love, the full extent to which God loves us! The only thing that can send us to Hell is our obstinate and definitive refusal to accept God’s grace before the moment of our death.  As C.S. Lewis says, "At the end of our lives, either we will say to God, 'Thy will be done,' or God will say to us, 'thy will be done.'" As I’ve said before, our choices here in this life have eternal consequences! If we say yes to God’s love, even if it’s imperfectly, even if it’s at the last minute, with our dying breath, then God floods us with His mercy! I have seen this grace at work on many deathbeds myself!  I've been blessed to see people make a good confession after years, or even decades, or to anoint someone who has been unconscious for days or weeks, and have them suddenly breathe their last, just moments after being anointed, as if they were waiting....

But imagine that one who has said yes to God has nonetheless held onto sin in his or her life? Take two extreme cases… what if in his final gasps after he had taken the poison pill, Adolf Hitler silently cried out to God for mercy? What if Judas Iscariot repented as he fell from the tree where he was hanging himself? It’s grisly to think about, but we don’t deny the possibility… and if God’s mercy was in even the slightest way accepted, we trust that even those two men could be saved. They come into God’s presence, suddenly seeing with perfect clarity all the ways they have spat upon His generosity… what would that be like? God loves us too much to leave us for all eternity lamenting our scabs and scars, lamenting the ways our yes has been incomplete… and so the fire of His love burns all that away! Think of a wound being cleaned so it can be sutured, or of grueling physical therapy that restores full range of motion.  My mom just had her knee replaced, and she has hours of physical therapy each week... it isn't easy, it isn't enjoyable.  And imagine the physical therapist... he or she doesn't enjoy causing pain to their patient, but the love them enough to seek their healing. Think of the way we must learn to love once again someone who has deeply hurt us. Parents and children recovering from division... any married couple that has been married for more than 10 minutes!  It's not easy to renew a relationship after hurt or betrayal.

God won’t save us with out us… His gift of eternal life isn’t superficial, snow on a dung heap as Luther so infamously said… rather God’s love must penetrate to the very depths of our being. To whatever extent we have not allowed that at the moment of our death, purgatory is the place where that purification and transformation is accomplished. How exactly this works, we do not know, and so we use the image of a purifying fire, or even in jokes the idea of a penance opposite our sin, or the idea of the passing of time… but this is all metaphorical and mysterious. In some sense, the soul in Purgatory is in the very same place it will always be, in the Fire of God’s love, but at first that is painful as the brokenness is cleansed away.  What if one of us were to suddenly be at the surface of the sun... momentarily we'd be very much unlike the sun, but suddenly we would become heat and light.

And so, having said all that, we come to these black vestments I’m wearing! Since the Vatican Council, the Church has specified that for funeral Masses and for All Souls’ Day, the priest should vest in either black, or purple, or white. Like you, I've almost always seen white used, but all three are suggested. White is the color of resurrection and baptism, purple is the color of penitence and sorrow, and black is the color of mourning and humility. The use of black is not meant to specify hopelessness, but rather to recognize the reality of mortal death. To take a phrase from a very different cultural context, black is beautiful! Let suggest three images…

First, a simple one, Cajun blackened catfish… if you like spicy food, this is the cat’s meow! The intensity of flavor and spice is out of this world. As the fish is fried in a heavy coating of spices, the heat melds and intensifies the flavors, deepening their zest and power.  So also, live lived in light of mortality is full of flavor and spice, rather than being superficial and bland.

Second, for the gardeners out there, think of good black soil! A gardener doesn't want pale sand or greasy red clay, but rather dark black rich soil.  All the organic material in a compost pile breaks down into a rich humus, full of nutrients, able to absorb water.  Such soil yields a rich, fruitful harvest.  A life lived in contact with the reality of our mortality, the reality of God's justice and mercy, will also be fruitful, yielding a rich harvest.

Finally take a black night, say in February when it's 20 below zero (it seems like we had about 50 of them last year)... there's no moisture in the air, and before the moon rises, it's a black as it can be.  But what can you see on such a night?  The stars... thousands of them, in all their brilliant glory and beauty.  So many beautiful stars that it can be hard to even find familiar constellations.... and the milky way emblazoned across the sky!  If we live our life in light of our mortality, the beautiful truth of God's merciful love, then we will be able to see the beauty of God's light shining in darkness, far more beautiful than the artificial light of false hope...

So on this All Soul's day, we come now to this altar to receive the food of eternal life, to offer this sacrifice for all our loved ones who have died.  We bring them in our hearts to this altar, and we ask God to receive them into His kingdom, purified, cleansed, and made new.  We ask God for the grace to live in the light of His truth, aware of our mortality, aware of His offer of eternal life...  In the silence now let us call to mind all who we pray for today, our family members and friends who have died, especially those most in need of God's mercy.

+ A. M. D. G. +