Homily for the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

At the beginning of today’s Gospel, Jesus goes up the mountain and sits down.  The Jewish listeners of Matthew’s audience, would have understand that Jesus was being compared to Moses who went up Mount Sinai to obtain the Law of God in the Commandments – and to the rabbis and teachers who always sat when they taught.

So the Sermon on the Mount that follows, and especially the Beatitudes we hear today, must be understood as part of the new teaching that Jesus offers.  But not one that supplants the Law: rather a teaching that fulfills the Law and adds depth to it. 

Just like the Law of old, this new teaching, these Beatitudes, bring a nation into existence and form a people – in the case of the Beatitudes, they bring the Church into being and form a people in the image of Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict has said that the Beatitudes “present a sort of veiled interior biography of Jesus, a kind of portrait of His figure.”  If we are to be a people formed in His likeness, we need to know this portrait well, and seek to imitate the pattern of our Lord’s beatitude.  So let’s look more closely at these Beatitudes, and some places in Scripture we see Jesus living and teaching them.

1.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus taught His disciples that, “whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3-4).  This is what it means to be poor in spirit – to trust in God as a loving father and to do His will.  Jesus Himself said, “my food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish His work” (John 4:34).  And of course we see this most vividly on the night before His passion, when Jesus prays in the Garden: “Not my will but yours be done.”

2.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

The Scriptures show Jesus weeping at the death of His friend Lazarus – but here Jesus is not saying that sadness over the death of a loved one is a good thing.  He is speaking, rather, of mourning as grieving over sin; as sorrow that God’s will is not recognized and followed.  Jesus Himself weeps over Jerusalem when the city fails to recognize Him as the Messiah (Luke 19:41-42), and throughout His ministry He calls for conversion and repentance. 

3.  Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Jesus says of Himself, “come to me for I am meek and humble of heart (Mt. 11:28-29).  We can understand that “meek” describes a peaceful response to violence when we recall that Jesus taught His disciples, saying: “You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well” (Matt 5:38-42).  And Jesus does just that during His trial when the temple guard strikes Him (John 18:22-23).

4.  Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Jesus was known as a righteous person even by non-Jews – even Pontius Pilate’s wife warned him, “have nothing to do with that righteous man (Matt 27:19).”  Jesus taught others to seek righteousness, telling the rich young man to follow the commandments of the Law, and warning the Pharisees and tax collectors about their self-righteousness.  But what does righteousness mean?  It means to act with justice, and the Biblical definition of justice is to care for the widow and orphan.  Jesus’ ministry to the poor, the sick, and the forgotten show His hunger for righteousness and justice.  He even describes His own ministry by saying to John the Baptist’s disciples: “the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them” (Matt 11:4-5).

5.  Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Forgiveness was, perhaps, the central message of Jesus mission – both God’s mercy for us and our need to forgive each other. Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd, who leaves the ninety-nine sheep in search of the lost one, (Luke 15:7) and He forgives everyone from the woman caught in adultery to His own executioners (Luke 23:34).  When Peter asks Jesus, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus explains, “not seven times but seventy-seven times” (Matt 18:21-22).

6.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

We can certainly understand purity of heart in terms of chastity – and Christ is the poor, chaste, and obedient one.  But purity of heart is more broadly understood as singular devotion to God’s call in our lives.  And so we see Jesus living this Beatitude when He resists the devil’s temptations in the desert, saying, “Get away, Satan! It is written: ‘The Lord, your God, shall you worship and him alone shall you serve’” (Matt 4:10).  And Jesus encourages the same in us when He says that only those who set hands to the plow and refuse to look back are worthy of the kingdom of God (Luke 9:62).

7.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Jesus taught His disciples that He alone is the source of true peace, saying to them: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27).  And Jesus mediated that peace.  When His disciples quarrel over who is the greatest, when the Pharisees catch a woman in adultery, and when Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest’s servant, Jesus teaches His disciples the gift of peace.

8.  Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.

Throughout the Gospels the chief priests seek to “obtain false testimony against Jesus in order to put him to death (Matt 26:59-60).  And though Pilate finds Jesus innocent, Herod’s soldiers still mock and beat Him and the crowds demand that He be killed.  And Jesus warned His disciples that they should expect to be persecuted because they were His followers, saying, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

These eight Beatitudes do indeed give us a portrait of Jesus and a model for us to follow – and that is undoubtedly the most important part: we must follow the Beatitudes!  Pope Benedict stresses this as well.  He says, “the Beatitudes express the meaning of discipleship.  What the Beatitudes mean cannot be expressed in purely theoretical terms; they are proclaimed in the life and suffering, and in the mysterious joy, of the disciple who gives himself over completely to following the Lord … To the extent that we accept Jesus’ proposal and set out to follow Him … we too can participate in His blessedness.”

And it’s on this crucial point that I want to end.  Jesus gives us the Beatitudes as a plan for our happiness and joy.  Like the Law itself, they are not given as a burdensome obligation – they are taught to us and modeled for us because they provide the means for obtaining the happiness for which we long.  That’s why they are called Beatitudes – the very word means happiness or joy.

There are so many things that the world proposes for us as the paths to happiness.  But sadly, as we learn when we obtain these things and find that we are still incomplete, the world’s ways are really illusions and traps.  So Jesus offers us a different, seemingly contradictory path.

The world tells us that possessions and things will make us happy … and Jesus tells us, “blessed are the poor.”  The world tells us that power, influence and control will make us happy … and Jesus tells us, “blessed are the meek.”  The world tells us to seek physical pleasure and to do what “feels good” … and Jesus tells us “blessed are those who mourn.”  The world tells us to seek affirmation and approval and to “fit in” … and Jesus tells us “blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.”

Christ’s program for happiness does not conform to the standards of the world, but rather it turns those standards upside down. It may seem foolish to many, but as St. Paul tells us: “God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise … the weak of the world to shame the strong … the lowly and despised of the world … to reduce to nothing those who are something” (1 Cor 1:27-28).

Brothers and sisters, let’s return to the Beatitudes again and again, and ask ourselves how well we are living this program for happiness.  What is our relationship with things, power, and prestige?  What do we mourn over, and for what do we hunger and thirst?  When our answers match our Lord’s program for us, we can then be assured of happiness in this life and in the life to come.

Homily for the St. Thomas Apostle Parish Young Adult Mass.

Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

In our first reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, the prophet speaks of the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali and how they have been “degraded.” This would have immediately made sense to the men and women of Jesus’ day, but it’s esoteric and foreign to us, so perhaps a little historical context is in order.

Zubulun and Naphtali are two of the twelve sons of Jacob – we might better recognize the names of some of the others, including Judah, Joseph, and Benjamin.

When Joshua and the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Joshua assigned portions of the land to each of the tribes of Israel, that is, to the families of Jacob’s twelve sons. The tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali got the land around the Sea of Galilee, which was the “land flowing with milk and honey”– it was a fertile valley for farming and grazing.

But because it was a valley, the land was also vulnerable to attacks from the hill country to the north – and indeed, when the King of Assyria invaded Israel, the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali were the first to be taken over.

Isaiah is writing during that time of occupation, and he is providing a hopeful vision of the day when all the lands of Israel will be restored under a king in the line of David. He writes: “the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light. Upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom, a light has shone.”

We hear this section of Isaiah every year on Christmas Eve because Jesus is that newborn king, that child of light, who fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah. And to make sure that we get the point, St. Matthew quotes the very same section in today’s Gospel.

Matthew recounts how Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested by Herod – but instead of running in the other direction, Jesus goes directly to Herod’s territory, to Capernaum, on the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. And He begins to proclaim the good news that “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”

Thus the first point of today’s Scriptures is to remind us that Jesus, and the Kingdom He preaches, are the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus is the king in David’s line, who reconstitutes the nation: the people of Israel. He restores to God what has been lost – not land, but God’s people who had strayed from Him.

But Matthew’s Gospel shifts abruptly to the second point of this week’s readings, which is to give us some means of recognizing the coming of the Kingdom that Jesus establishes.

In a rapid-fire style, Matthew records how Jesus sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, as they are casting their nets into the sea. Jesus calls them, “and at once, they left their nets and followed Him.” Immediately after that, Jesus sees two more brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee. They too are fishermen and they are mending their nets. Jesus calls them, and “immediately, they left their boat and their father and followed Him.”

St. Matthew doesn’t simply have a short attention span! He doesn’t shift gears quickly or use a fast pace because he has some form of attention deficit.

He tells us about the calling of Jesus’ first disciples directly after telling us about Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom, because the story gives us at least two characteristics that mark the Kingdom, so that we too can recognize it, and help build it.

First, the Kingdom is a present reality – it is here and now – and therefore it demands an immediate response. There is no time for delay or for waiting. That’s why Matthew employs that rapid-fire style, and keeps the details to a minimum: it highlights the fact that Simon and Andrew followed Jesus “at once,” and that James and John “immediately left their boat.”

What about you and me? Do we sense the immediacy and the urgency of the Kingdom of God? Are we willing to drop everything to accept the Lord’s invitation, or do we rather try to bargain and delay? “Someday, I’ll surrender that grudge and forgive that person. I’ll give up that sinful practice, eventually.” “I’ll have more time for prayer, or for charity, when I’m retired.”

As St. Paul says, and as we remind ourselves every Lent: “now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” So the first characteristic of the Kingdom is that it is here, and it demands that we respond immediately.

The second characteristic of the Kingdom, that we discover in these readings, is that it collects what has been scattered, and brings together what has been separated. It is not a coincidence that the first thing that Jesus does after proclaiming the nearness of the Kingdom is call disciples to Himself . . . and again, it is no accident that the first ones called are fishermen with nets! Jesus Himself promises: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

The Kingdom builds bonds of community, and brings people together into the unity of Christ, and we see this in its infancy when Jesus forms the community of the Apostles.

Notice too how many Apostles there end up being. Twelve: exactly the number of the sons of Jacob; the tribes of Israel that Jesus is restoring! Jesus brings them together as brothers before He sends them out in pairs to help spread the message of the Kingdom. And the night before He dies, Jesus prays to His Father that His Apostles will always remain as one.

If unity is a characteristic of the Kingdom –then in order for us to manifest the Kingdom to the world; in order for us to help build communities of the Kingdom that is to come, then we must be united with one another in one heart, and one mind, and one purpose – which is, of course, the heart, and mind, and will of Christ.

That’s why in our second reading, St. Paul writes to the Corinthians who have been breaking into different factions, supporting different leaders within the Christian community. Paul urges them, “be united in the same mind and in the same purpose, that there be no divisions among you.”

And then, in truly chilling words, Paul names the stakes of our keeping unity: he says we must maintain our unity in Christ “so that the Cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.”

Friends, the Cross is the emblem and sign of the Kingdom, because it is present and immediate, and it demands a response from us. And the Cross is a sign of the Kingdom because it is our source of unity, and because even in its shape, the Cross makes clear how Christ’s death reaches out to ends of the earth, and unites all people within its arms.

But brothers and sisters, if we who profess faith in the power of the Cross are constantly dividing ourselves into factions, then we are really denying the Cross, and we will never be able to effectively proclaim the coming of Christ’s Kingdom. We will not be a sign, but a counter-sign.

So then let us all, with a sense of tremendous urgency, profess and live the words: “We belong to Christ.” Let us together strive for the unity that comes from sharing the one bread and the one cup, and let us be nourished for our mission of proclaiming the coming of Christ’s Kingdom.

Preaching the “Gospel of Life” Amidst the “Culture of Death”

The following will appear in our Little Flower Parish bulletin this Sunday, January 23rd:

This past Thursday, January 20th, my religious community celebrated the feast of our founder, Blessed Basil Moreau. This weekend, I’ll have the chance to celebrate with several of my brothers in Holy Cross who will travel to Washington, D.C., accompanying groups of students from our colleges and universities on the annual March for Life.

At first, it might seem that these two commemorations have very little in common. And yet, a further examination of Blessed Basil Moreau’s life, I believe, offers us a powerful example of zealous witness in troubled times.

Blessed Basil Moreau was born in France, in the wake of the French Revolution which had decimated the Church in France. Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C. describes the society in which Blessed Basil Moreau lived and worked:

“The dominant world culture is aggressively hostile to religion in general and Catholicism in particular . . . Moral lapses are magnified in the popular media, and many religious congregations seem uncertain of their role and their future . . . The great universities of the world are virtual bastions of atheism, while Catholic schools struggle to resist direct control by the state or even by their local bishop. Many prudent and reasonable people of faith are tempted to retreat into their own worlds; others have lost the will and self-confidence to carry on the Church’s great commission to win the world for Christ.”

But Blessed Basil Moreau strenuously resisted being entirely assimilated into such a culture, and never retreated from challenging whatever was un-Christian in the culture. The restoration of the Church was the principal mission of Blessed Basil’s life, and his reason for founding the Congregation of Holy Cross. Blessed Basil worked tirelessly to reunite “learning, holiness, and service into a single religious enterprise” for service to the Church and the conversion of society.

Of course, it’s not much of a stretch to see the parallels to our own day in this description of nineteenth century France. Certainly those of us who will gather on the Mall tomorrow are fully aware of the challenges our Church and society face, especially in combating what soon-to-be Blessed Pope John Paul II referred to as “the culture of death.”

And yet my experience of previous Marches convinces me that there are also many people today – especially young people – who are determined to follow in the path of Blessed Basil Moreau. They refuse to surrender to the dominant “culture of death,” refuse to retreat from evangelizing the culture in which we live. Like the apostles in the Gospels they have responded to our Lord: “To whom else would we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

Let us pray that all of us – especially young people – will grow in learning, develop in personal holiness, and give ourselves tirelessly in service. This is how we will restore the Church in our own age and proclaim to the world the Gospel of Life.

I will once again be attending the Vigil for Life and the March for Life this year, but this time as a resident of the Washington D.C. area . . . this means I have the pleasure of spending time with Holy Cross seminarians and our college students but don't have to endure two twelve hour bus rides to do it!! More on the weekend's events next week. Let us pray for Life!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Earlier this week, my classmate Fr. Jim sent along an email containing this picture from the files of the official photographer of the University of Notre Dame:

He took the picture back when Jim, Pete and I were seminarians and none of us have seen it until now. It's kind of neat to have this perfectly candid shot of the three of us from days gone by. It's also good to see that none of us are that much worse off for the wear. And finally, it's nice photographic proof that I'm not always the one talking!

American Catholic Historical Association - Boston

As Mom and Dad got back to school in the new year, I remained on vacation for one additional week, and took the opportunity to attend the annual meetings of the American Historical Association and the American Catholic Historical Association, which were held concurrently in Boston from January 6-9.

I drove up to Boston and stayed at the conference hotel attached to Boston's convention center, just blocks from Newbury Street and the Boston Public Library. I had a very nice view from my room of the First Church of Christ, Scientist complex.

Before the conference began, I did a little walking tour which included the shops of Newbury Street and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, the Catholic cathedral of Boston. My friends in the Notre Dame School of Architecture will have to help me with this, but it struck me that the towers were a bit odd: they either need true steeples, or need to have the current tower roofs removed and to be left as towers.

Anyway, even more disappointing was the fact the cathedral was locked at three o'clock on a weekday. Only the Eucharistic chapel on the side of the cathedral remained open for visitors. I understand the concern about security and insurance, and I'm glad at least the Eucharistic chapel was open for people to stop in and pray, but I couldn't help see the locked doors as a sad statement about one of the nation's once-great archdioceses.  Granted, this isn't a true downtown cathedral in quite the same way as New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles, but those cathedrals are always open.

I very much enjoyed the conferences I attended, and also had fun socializing with a number of colleagues from Catholic University and from Notre Dame who were also attending the weekend's events. I particularly enjoyed a foray into the North End for an Italian dinner with friends from CUA.  That evening, we were even treated to a nice little snowfall:

On Sunday I drove back to Staten Island for one evening, and then completed the drive to D.C. the next morning for the start of classes. Since I've been back, we've also had some snow here in Washington - though not nearly as much as in New York, Boston, or South Bend. I'll keep praying, though!

Eataly NYC

Whenever I come home to New York, I have the tradition of making a pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Cathedral. At Christmas time I always combine this trip with a stop at Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and some other stops for shopping and sightseeing.

I particularly enjoy St. Patrick's when it is decorated for Christmas, and the organist and cantor are still doing Christmas hymns at the daily Masses . . . 

After a few prayers at the creche . . .

. . . I made my way to the tree at Rockefeller Center, and also stopped in the LEGO store!

After spending the mid-morning in midtown, I made my way downtown into the shadows of the famous Flatiron Building . . .

. . . where Mario Batali and company have established Eataly - an entire Italian food market under one roof.  Eataly sells wine and beer, meats and cheeses, breads and sweets, coffee, fresh fish and produce, fresh and dried pasta, cook books and housewares. In other words, almost everything touching upon the culinary life of Italy. The variety is astonishing and the quality is also very high. The displays are absolutely gorgeous and the staff seemed knowledgeable - and busy, given the number of patrons.

One of Eatlay's mottos is, we cook what we sell and sell what we cook.  So throughout the establishment, the various marketplaces are set up not only for retail but for dining as well. I sat in the pizza and pasta section, and was happy to have a seat right at the kitchen counter.

I was dining at the latter end of the weekday lunch rush and things were definitely hopping. I enjoyed my beer as I watched everyone else work.

My first course was a fabulous winter salad of fennel, celery root, cauliflower and Asian pear. I absolutely love fennel, and it was perfectly paired with the sweetness of the Asian pear. If I had nothing else I would have left happy.

But of course I also had pasta! I ordered the pasta al forno with ragu, and it too was very good.

On the way out, I took another swing through the various marketplaces and had a small piece of tiramisu (sorry, no picture . . . there was no room at the very small pastry counter so I had to eat on the move!). It was probably in the top five tiramisu I have ever had.

There's been a good deal of buzz surrounding Eataly and to my mind it basically lived up to the hype.

I can't say if I would make it my regular market if I lived nearby . . . things seemed a little expensive, but I might be unused to NY prices these days. Also, I wonder how many of the things being sold there could also be found at other nearby markets. New York obviously has many excellent bakeries, butchers and fishmongers - and innumerable establishments for Italian specialty foods. Eataly might be a greater resource in smaller or less diverse cities (though those places might also have less interest in such a store).

And finally, although the crowds were reasonable when I was visiting, they were still too much for the location to handle. It was difficult to find a place at the counters and tables to sample the provisions - and if I hadn't been solo, it would have been impossible. I can only imagine what the place is like at peak hours and on weekends.

At the same time, as I have already noted the quality of the food was excellent - and the staff was very friendly. Like Disney World for food, you might not go every day, and you might have to fight the crowds, but it's definitely a lot of fun!