27th Sunday "Faith: Don't memorize it, live it!"

What an impressive insight from a largely unknown prophet of Israel. Habakkuk, having come to his wits end in the ensuing tumult of the nation, cries out in anguish to the LORD asking “don’t you see what’s going on? Don’t you care about us? Why are you not doing anything?” The prophet receives an answer that we deep down know to be true, but too often do not want to admit for we it’s losing control of our wills and lives.

The LORD tells the distressed prophet, “I see what’s going on. In fact, I see it and understand it more that you will ever know in this lifetime. I see the pain, the destruction and the sin – and I’m using it for my purpose.”

Today we could add to that, “Didn’t I send my Son to die for you? Didn’t I take your sin and conquer it by death? Didn’t I rise from the underworld for you? Don’t I extend to you my Mercy in every confession? Don’t I offer you my Body and my Blood at every mass? Don’t I sit on your altar so you and I to gaze upon each other in adoration? Don’t I send legions of angels every day and at every time in history to protect you, my beloved creation? Don’t I give you the example of the saints to follow as guides and intercessors? I do all this for you without asking anything out of you, but that you trust me, that you love me, that you seek me.”

This is the reminder Habakkuk received quite poignantly from the LORD – there is no need to wonder what the LORD knows and sees – he’s quite keen and astute to the topics of earthly and temporal affairs.

The key here is that we find within our faith the protection and strength to meet all life’s battles and tumults.

Faith, along with the word Love, is perhaps one of the most watered down  and misrepresented words within our language. Faith cannot be seen as merely having some set of codes and creeds in our back pocket to pull out and offer to the pagan, atheist, protestant, Jew, Muslim who differs from our way of thinking. If you’ve ever tried to convert with a battle over facts and ordinances, you know what a waste of time that really is. You can’t reason someone into a conversion of the heart, if you think you can, then I’d like to witness what other divine acts you can do for us!

No, faith is not a set of codes and ordinances of a Church or religion. Whenever it’s reduced to that, we encounter a dying religion. Not because our laws aren’t interesting, but because it gets off track and ineffective. That is not faith, it’s merely the context and the earthly way of living it out and understanding the theology of God and Church.

Faith is not the theology – theology is theology. Faith is an act of the will – Faith is a verb! Faith is coming before the LORD in the Eucharist and falling to your knees because you realize that on your best day, you can’t even begin to fathom how that bread becomes the body of your GOD. Faith is waking up each morning and realizing that you have been given another day on this earth, not because of your great healthy living tips, but because the LORD has a will for you to live out. Faith is taking the rosary in your hands and gripping them in utter surrender to the beauty of a life lived in the Blessed Mother and realizing that She and all the Saints are gazing upon the face of God and are intimately connected with you and never ceases to pray for you. Faith is looking at your family, your friends, your loved ones and realizing that God has given you a precious gift that nothing can ever replace – and sticking close by them and sacrificing for them so that you go without so they can have. Faith informs us that the posture of a Christian is the cross, and if you aren’t living your life in cruciform obedience, then you aren't tapping into your potential. Faith is everyday recognizing the incalculable beauty that’s penetrating your heart and mind, and it’s beckoning you to bask in the light of that beauty.

When our lives are this, when our lives look like this, then we have found the pearl and the essence of faith. Faith, reduced to some facts and figures is not faith – it’s exactly that: facts and figures. But a life conformed to the Mysteries and abandoned to the arms of our omnipotent God – that is faith. When our lives are built upon the essence and practices of God, and not merely our minds to the theology of it, then we find contentment in the will of the LORD. Then we understand, not Habakkuk’s desolation, but the consolation of the LORD he received.

If everyone lived the cross. If everyone surrendered to the Mysteries that penetrates the cosmos. If we surrender to the magnitude of what has been done for us, then we have begun to understand what faith really is – and it’s joyful! That is how we convert by our faith. In the freedom we have found in the arms of a GOD who loves us, we bring a new tinge and hue to the world. If all of us did that, if all of us were to live cruciform lives, what a different place this would be, what a vibrant Church we would have. The laws, ordinances and codes and creeds of the Faith – those are easy and will naturally follow – don’t obsess about it or make your faith about it. If you aren’t living it first, you’re life will be like a 9^th grade research paper instead of an intoxication of Divine Love!

This is achievable in everybody. Why? Because we are all made and destined for the same God! So believe and abandon yourselves into God. Make your faith first about that, then everything else will fall into place, you have my guarantee.

Only then, and I mean only then, will our lives really ever make sense. Only then will we ever begin to find meaning in our sufferings and death. Only then do we begin to finally live and live life to the fullest! If you do not find yourself coming before the mysteries of God everyday, you have not begun to understand what Faith means. You have perhaps grasped doctrine, but not what it means to have faith. Or you just really haven’t thought about it all together, and thus you really have no idea what you’ve been missing!

So go out today and be like our beloved saint, Saint Francis who, as the prayer attributed to him asks, making us instruments of God’s peace – becoming vessels and agents of the LORD and allowing the Spirit to grip hold and make amazing things happen!

Nothing to lose and everything to gain: 33rd Sunday, OTB

So much of popular Christian literature and culture is wrapped in the theme of the rapture, the Second Coming, the End Times. Quite often, those who make the attempt to produce films or author novels about such themes are rarely rooted in anything steeped in Tradition or Truth.

It's quite popular to portray end times or the end of the world as some hybrid of the plagues of Exodus, amplified with 20th century carnage and warfare. When, in reality, this is not an accurate representation of any truth found within Sacred Scripture, nor the ongoing Tradition of the Church.

So what are the real end times? What will it mean and what will happen? It probably shouldn't be a surprise that the answer is "I don't know". It should be music to the ears of the Catholic who recognizes that almost everything of our faith is cemented in the Mystery of a Triune God who was incarnate of a Virgin, suffered death and rose from the clutches of the underworld to bring all men to Himself. If you can somehow condense all that and make simple sense of it all, then you truly do not believe!

That is a great charism of our One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church - we embrace mystery, we find solace within the endless chambers of the the Heart of God.

When we read these passages in the Scriptures that alludes to the End Times, let us not get ourselves all worked up over some looming destruction and hell-hot coals consuming our earthly flesh; rather, let us truly understand the impetus of Jesus' words.

Jesus' sermon has now turned to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The destruction would take place 40 years after this great sermon in the year 70AD. It was in that generation that they would witness the horrendous destruction of the center of all Jewish sacrifice and life. There has not been a sacrifice offered by any Jew since that very day.

Within the Temple were endless displays of celestial ornamentation, paintings, weavings, tapestries and symbolism that gave the Jewish people a visual reminder of the constant presence of the God of the universe in their midst and that indeed this is where the heavens kissed the earth.

And it is from the destruction in 70AD that the Jews await their messiah - their King - to come and rebuild the Temple, defeat the enemies of chosen people and to rule for all time and make jerusalem the capital of creation. It is a restoration of the rubbled Old that they await for.

We Christians, specifically Catholics, await for a fulfillment, for the New Earth and the New Jerusalem. We await the coming of our King at the end of the Ages to come and rule over Heaven and Earth where He will reign in every galaxy, solar system, planet, continent, nation, community and heart. When He comes, He wont rebuild, He will transform!

We await the fulfillment of the New Covenant itself where every sin and sleep of death will be obliterated by the light of His reign and will be no more. It is where we will be face to face with our King, and a 'cushy, fluffy, weak, homemade, feel good, spiritual but not religious, it doesn't matter what I do cause God loves me anyways life of nonsense' will no longer cut it. Nor will the 'fundamentalist bible thumper kind either where ignorance of the Truth and depth of Scripture is encouraged' - It will be about His Church, His Law, His Commandments and His Truth.

We will come to finally come to see that our parish really is connected to the Church which is the Body of Christ extending every outpost of time and space where membership is eternal. It is through His Church, just like through His Temple, that the real presence will be fulfilled on earth. His reign will be so mighty and bright that the sun will fade into darkness. It will be blinding - that's why souls go through purgatory, preparing to gaze upon that light of the King.

That is why we need to be vigilant, because we know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man will come. We need to be prepared to stand, not only in front of Him and beam with joy in the presence of His light, but along side Him as one body united in Truth and Love.

What will all this look like? Entail? Our transfigured bodies and world: what will they look and feel like?

Truthfully, it doesn't really matter. Those details wont change their reality or their imminence. What does matter is that we live lives as virtuous Catholics, ardently defending our Church, our God,  and the Truth of Jesus Christ. Though the Jews are waiting for something we don't believe will ever happen, we need to remain united to them, not only as our great brothers and sisters of the Old Covenant and of antiquity, but their passion for the presence of God as the center of their lives - as seen in the Temple.

The truth is, our King will come! We are in those end times, after the destruction and waiting for the new. But these are not days of waiting for destruction, vengeance, pestilence and red rivers throughout the lands. We are in a period of waiting for Love enfleshed to stand in our midst and kill every evil. Our King, born to us as a baby, died for us on a tree, will come to hold us close in the warmth of his embrace and allow us to hear the beating of His heart.

We have nothing to fear and everything to gain if we live a life deserving of that King and His victory. Perfection may never be achieved in our lives, but an ardent desire to love God and follow His will is definitely what we can achieve.

What is the Greatest Commandment? LOVE!

Priesthood is a busy life! I have not found the time, nor carved it out, to write as often as I would like. But, I feel that I don't want to let this free moment go by without offering a little reflection on this Sunday's beautiful and rich Scripture and our elections this week...

Perhaps it is yet another one of those great mysteries of our Faith as to why great tragedies happen in our lives as individuals and as a people, this past week was not shy from offering us another such mystery. Hurricane Sandy just caused utter destruction and devastation to so many of our brothers and sisters on the East coast, neighborhoods obliterated, lives lost, memories washed away. It is within the pondering of man to seek the meaning behind the brevity of such things in our lives and the reality of eternity we dwell within. All suffering must be processed through the Crucifixion of our Lord and the Kingdom He has opened for us - any effort short of Christ will fail. Truth.

What this tragedy, as with others I can recall, did was to bring people back to their roots of common humanity. Communities that were once a collection of individuals, have become bodies of cooperation and charity. We have seen this past week the truth of who we are come through. We have seen political adversaries together arm in arm fighting for the welfare of their fellow man with no political filter or campaign stump. It is remarkable that Mr. Romney and Obama ceased campaigning this week for a few days. If politics were so important and defining to an individual, then why did they stop? Out of sensitivity? They stopped to be sensitive! THey stopped because ultimately none of those artificial divides mean anything. We are not Democrat and Republican. Those are made up terms to further divide and conquer a people. I can declare my self a "Jupiter Zambonni" and it holds as much weight in eternity as does our Democrat and Republican labels do.

I am not trying to be angry or pessimistic about government and the practice of law and policy - those are necessary entities in a well ordered society. But, there is a right way and a wrong way to understand it and live it out.

This week we're going to hear a lot about party politics, the economy, jobs, Benghazi, Medicare / Medicaid, HHS Mandate, the 'war on women', etc.,etc.,etc.. I can almost guarantee there will almost no utterance of the Gospel, the Crucifixion, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, Natural Law, Salvation, Eternity, The Good, the True, the Beautiful! We live in a society that is both afraid and ignorant of what is truly real and meaningful. It is the easy way out to just blame others for our problems, to puff up our egos and make others inferior, to deny others the Love they deserve so that I can seek my own power and gain.

What is the greatest commandment? LOVE! Love your fellow man as if you can see the very image of God impressed on their soul. Love your community as a microcosm of the great and magnificent Body of Christ. Love your family for the Trinitarian Love it reflects. Love your God who loved you so much He came to walk among us and allowed HImself to experience every degree of human suffering and pain and willingly let His persecutors nail him to a pice of wood in utter agony just so we could be with Him for eternity. Love your God everywhere and everyday!

Husbands and wives just don't love each other in the privacy of their homes and hate each other in public. Men don't love and respect their wives and children at the dinner table and then beat them and ridicule them at the store. Its absurd to love in some places and not all places; to love sometimes and not all the time!

LOVE! Be people madly in love with life, each other and with God. Let that show and be the engine and thrust of our very essence and being. The moment we let artificial boundaries, labels, divisions, prejudices and politics get in the way of Love - that is sin! If I don't allow myself to love as I've been commanded and as a response to the unimaginable love we've been given by God, then I am falling into sin and promoting hatred and darkness. That is not the path to eternal life, it just isn't.

It is sad that we need tragedy to bring us back to our roots and down to our knees in humble awe at the true beauty of our humanity and of Love. Let us take this experience of seeing the truth of Love and humanity and run with it. Let us take it into our daily lives and not suspend it or jeopardize it for anything our anyone. We have been called to love totally in all times nad places, let us not fall into the traps of sin that tells us to defy our consciences and our beliefs for some finite and fickle cause.

A Willy Wonka Utopia?

Previously I wrote about the latest bit of news with the lawsuits in court right now over the HHS mandate. I talked about how I really see it as a war of good v evil and not a case of the administration being blindsided by the church. If it is a battle of good v evil, the devil knows what he is doing, the devil knows who his opponents are and is very cunning and clever. This is why we need to not get a sense of arrogance or pride in the fact we filed lawsuits, but remain extra vigilant in the living out of our faith and the Gospel.

In thinking about this 'culture of death' that is just creeping in on every front, I really wrestle with putting myself in 'their' shoes and trying to find the attraction in all this. The architecture of such a society involves cold, white-washed, sterile and pre-fab materials that create something as beautiful and exquisite as an old Walmart. But, I don't think its the beauty - or lack thereof - but the perceived freedom of movement that many people believe they will achieve.

At one level, I can empathize with them in that "who wouldn't want to be free and enjoy all the pleasures the world has to offer?" "Who wouldn't want to live in a world where there were no consequences for our actions and that any appetite we had, it was okay to indulge it?" 

On one level, it can sound very attractive to create this utopia of sorts where life was as happy as Wonka's chocolate factory. But it is an illusion that leads to utter depravity and certain death. At one level, I can see abandoning beauty for pleasure, but that would get old and un-pleasurable real quick. 

It is this lack of the 'big picture' that is fueling this movement. The utter absence of rational thinking at even the most basic level is impeding individuals from thinking about the bigger questions of life, humanity and God. When we do this and subtract any 'higher-thininkg' from our mental landscape, the chocolate factory looks pretty darn attractive.

BUT 

We are made in the Image of God...We are made for relationship...We are made to give ourselves to an Other...We are made with spirit and flesh...We are in a state of fallen humanity in need of a savior...We NEED the Church and all She offers us by means of sacraments, worship, sound interpretaion of scripture and a means to touch the mysteries of God.

This 'Willy Wonka' utopia of free sex and play forces the individual to ignore all of the above. You cannot  create a culture where the human body is treated as a play thing, where we find it a right to murder unborn children, where governments are more sacred than the Church instituted by Christ AND maintain a biblical view of humanity wrapped in the mystery of God.

The false utopia will lead - there is no debate about it - to human despair and depravity because it denies us of our true identity and our most intrinsic needs: true relationships, love and God in all His transcendental qualities. When we starve ourselves of what we really need, the next logical step is death. Stone cold death and the risk of an eternity in the abyss of eternal hell. 

It's a real choice and the choice is ours.

The devil is no dummy and he is certainly real. Sin is an incredible seductive and powerful entity that is loose and roaming all around us. We need to remain in the Truth and the Church if we wish to ever come close to creating a culture that reflects just that. 

Palm Sunday: We have entered Jerusalem!

We have finally entered Jerusalem! We have spent this Lent in the desert, the wilderness, thirsting and pining for God. We have spent this Lent alone with our God.

Now we have joyfully entered Jerusalem waving palm branches in praise and happiness at the entrance of our God, Our King!

This week is Hoy Week. The holiest weeks of the year and nothing remotely compares to it's majesty.

This is the week where we enter Jerusalem waving palm branches in praise of Jesus, but it is also the same week where we will hit his body with reeds and whip him, shredding his flesh.

This is the week where we cry "Hosanna to the Son of David" "This is our King!"But, it is also the week where we will sentence our king to death for being our king! We will mockingly nail "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum" Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, to his cross.

This is the week where we lay down our clothes on the donkey and along the path of His entrance into Jerusalem, but also will strip Him naked in humiliation.

This is the week where we acclaim "Glory, Laud and Honor", but also the week where we shout and abuse HIm to the point of shame and leave Him with little dignity.

We have entered Jerusalem. We are holding palm branches in praise of our king, but we will by the end of the week be holding nails to affix Him to a tree.

We are not just remembering and recalling theses events, they are real and timeless. This is the holiest week of the year and a week that knows no boundaries of time or space. We are present with our Lord, our King, through it all. This week we walk with Him triumphantly into Jerusalem, but also walk with Him carrying His cross to the place of death.

May we fully enter into the liturgy, the prayer, the scripture and the intimacy of this week. May we bring our whole selves to this journey with Christ and come to know the events of this week as real and meaningful to our lives.

dust you are and dust you shall return

Lent is that season in the church year where we resolve to give something up. Most of us probably choose  something like sweets or a recreational activity or anything that we can eliminate from our lives for the next 40 days.

There is nothing wrong with this and ought to be encouraged, but I believe that it doesn't get to the heart of Lent and can even leave Lent as a lukewarm experience.

Lent is perhaps the season of the Church year that is most life giving. This may seem paradoxical, and indeed it is meant to be. How is a season where we deprive ourselves and talk about sin and death be a time of life?

We give up these things for Lent because we are supposed to be reminded that we do not need these things to live and survive. We are forced into a period of simplicity and purgation that ought to show us just how blessed we are with what we have and realize how little we need to live a full life.

In the same breath, we are also focusing on our sinfulness and our eventual death. This can seem and feel a little uncomfortable to talk about outside of a "church setting". I know that I am cautious to bring up the topic of death in conversation with family and friends - it is just not something we talk about casually or openly. But, we are called to during these 40 days. We are called to examine our sinfulness and our death.

Remember, it was sin that brought about death. We were created to be eternal and death as we know it was not 'in the original plan'. Adam and Eve first sinned and that sin ruptured our relationship with God and brought about a physical death that we all must go through by nature of our sinfulness. The only human (let's leave Christ out of this for now) that never died was our Blessed Mother...and she never sinned!

This is a reality of our lives and our existence. No one will escape death. Death will take hold of each of us. We can't hide from its presence anymore than we can from God's.

When those we love die, we experience incredible grief, pain and loneliness. We go through those emotions because this was not supposed to be this way. We are separated and we long to be - we were made to be - connected and in communion. This is the ultimate price of love. If you love someone, you will experience pain - throughout your relationship and through death.

This is where life comes in! "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return". When we realize that we are going to die. When we realize that we are sinful. We begin to see what it means to live.
We see that we are meant to live for others and Christ. We cannot take any fame, glory or wealth with us to the grave - the Psalms are peppered with this reminder. We begin to realize that living for others is the ultimate purpose of our lives. We don't love to serve ourselves - we're going to die and not bring any of our 'stuff' with us. We are meant to live for love. We are made to love others and to love God. This is the only thing that lasts and that goes with us through the death's portals.

Remembering that we are all dust frees us to purge our lives of possession, addictions, selfishness and be able to live that Lenten Trifecta of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Our death also guarantees that we will have eternal life. Only through death does the resurrection come. "You can't have Easter Sunday without Good Friday" as the saying goes.

Yes, death and sin are sobering thoughts and can lead us into some very arid spiritual deserts - this is good and necessary for all of us. The spiritual life is not meant to be cushy and luscious all the time - if it is for you, you may not be challenging yourself to grow. But, when we come out of these deserts, we will know the true value of refreshing water. We will no longer take for granted that faucet of life, but will cherish every satiating drop that flows forth.

Remember, man, dust you are and dust you shall return