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!

Baptism of the Lord homily

As you know, I returned last week from a pilgrimage to Rome. If you have been there, you can surely testify along side me the immensity and the breadth of the beauty that paints the streets, churches and history of that Eternal City. It really is an overwhelming endeavor to take in and process everything that surrounds you and that is overflowing your senses; it will take me a lifetime to reap all the fruits of such a trip. You can take a square inch of almost everything and extract that as a piece of priceless art worthy of thought and contemplation to appreciate its immense beauty and eternal refulgence. 

Rome is a place where the human mind, senses and spirit are lifted higher and you are helpless against the desire to see, know and experience more because, frankly, you feel united to God, history and the saints. You’re lifted to higher places because you’re around and presented by beauty that desires to do just that, history that ties you into eternity. With so much of your surroundings being priceless art and beauty, you need the time to appreciate it and to digest it and find its meaning and message. That is what true art does, and Rome specially affords the opportunity with being immersed in it.

These past six or seven weeks since the beginning of Advent, we have not been passively engaging in events past, reading about and recalling something that happened to and with people a few thousand years ago. No, we have been present with them and have been journeying and contemplating what has been revealed with them. That contemplating is what has been so essential and what truly reminds us just how real and active this has all been, from the lighting of that first candle to the Baptism of the Lord that draws to a close this Christmas season.

Consider the shepherds in the fields. They were simply doing their tasks of watching the sheep and warding off predators. But, from a distance they saw angels and as the angels drew closer, they began to stop and wonder what they were and what purpose they had for being there. Then the angles announce “Glory to God in the Highest” the savior is born! They go then to see this baby laying in the soft glow of perhaps an oil lamp in the coolness of the darkened stable. They gaze upon him and wonder, contemplate who this is and the angels’ message.

Consider the three kings, the wise men who traveled from countries far following a star. The star appeared and, in their wonderment and desire to see their King, they follow it, not knowing where it would lead them, but trusting only in the power of faith and the existence of this star in the heavenly cosmos. Their hearts are restless, they travel with no regard for what’s easier and what’s more convenient or without thought of the possibility that this could lead them nowhere or to their deaths. They travel and contemplate the meaning of this star. Then, they arrive to the humbleness of the manger and present this baby the gifts of a king, a man and a God. Not fully aware what had just transpired or what this baby would become, they go back and contemplate Him on their journey.

Consider Mary, the Blessed Mother. She, if anyone should have had all the answers and understanding of the Messiah, of her baby, but she doesn’t! Yes, she could tell us he weighed 8lbs 4ozs at birth and was 20” long and about his first words or how he would cry all night or when he would have gotten sick and she had to care for him, or when she had to go call him in for supper, or how he struggled with his math and everything else a mother can tell you about her son, but she too had to contemplate her son, God. Scripture tells us she kept these things in her heart and contemplated them. She was in the same boat as us in needing to seek the face of God and to gaze upon Him in the silence of the heart so as to know Him as He reveals Himself to us.

Today we remember the baptism of the Lord when His cousin John baptizes Him in the Jordan and Jesus is set now for His entire public ministry once the Father  reveals Himself that Jesus is the Christ. Again, we need to have Him revealed, we need to have our hearts and eyes set in Him so as to see Him and know Him and ultimately Love Him. Like Rome which requires a lifetime and then some to take in and process all the beauty and holiness draping every corner to fully appreciate and see all that’s there, so too does it take that long and even more to see Him and know Him and have Him reveal Himself to us.

This is truly the vocation of every Christian: to contemplate the presence and the beauty of God so as to have Him more revealed to us so as to know Him and love Him greater. Just as the beauty, history and holiness of Rome leads the human heart mind and soul to transcend itself and attain something higher, so too do the revelations of God pull us to transcend ourselves and fly into His embrace.

This is the message and meaning of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and The Baptism of the Lord- these last seven weeks of liturgies. Let us take this knowledge, insight and excitement into this brief period of Ordinary Time and seek Him, follow Him and contemplate His face, the very face of Love.

Christmas Homily 2012

     "Once in Royal David's City" is hands down my most beloved Christmas Hymn. Aside from the beautiful music it is written to, the words provoke much contemplation about the mystery of Christmas and leaves the listener, or singer, helpless against the urge to wonder in awe. This Advent, I made it a personal 'theme' of mine in prayer and in my preaching to the parish a particular line from the hymn. It is the first line in particular from my favorite verse:

And our Eyes at last shall see him

Through His own redeeming love

For that Child so dear and gentle

Is Our Lord in Heaven above

And He leads his children on

To the place where He is gone

      Seeing. Isn't that what Advent was all about? Each of us has been preparing to gaze upon the face of the infant Jesus this night - the face of God, the face of Love. 

    
      What do we desire to gaze upon? What do we wish above all else that we could behold? In times of emptiness, loneliness, fear and insecurity, what do we desire to soothe us?

    

      In the darkness and stillness of this Holy Night, our eyes at last see what we need and hunger for. Born this night is the fulfillment of every human heart and desire. Because sinfulness has brought us un-fulfillment, alienation, a myriad of suffering and desolation to varying degrees, we need the presence of something whole, beautiful and true. 

     This night we behold that which was robbed from us in the egregious act of original sin: Life; life to the full and life that makes us full. It was at that first Christmas where we saw the shimmer of Love glistening upon the human heart. It was this Love made flesh that every human soul searched for for centuries. It was This infant, this innocent and vulnerable child, that was the answer to every question of doubt and anguish. It was His promise that we would find in Him everything. It is in the presence of this infant child that everything we need and desire is found!

     Is this idealistic or for the pious? No. He is for everyone, and everyone needs Him. This isn’t just some nice thing that Christians find comfort in or some formula to anesthetize us from the pains and unflattering truths of this world. Jesus is for everyone and everyone needs Him and His presence. The existence of pagan mythologies, plethora of world religions and every other attempt by man to search for and construct god and gods is proof that man, regardless of background, is universally craving this vision of God. For it is in this presence of the infant that we become whole again and find our true wholeness. 

     The infant Jesus, in his crying, cooing and cawing, contains in His entirety what every man, woman and child needs and longs for. He is the reason for great rejoicing this festive and hope-filled time of year. 

     His birth shows us that the Love of an other said yes to Life and allowed the baby to be born, bringing with Him Love to those He will be around. Life necessitates Love, and Love cannot help but bring Life. 

     What do we need to see? Love. What do we need? Life. With the events of this Holy Night, we see and we live! We sit in the manger beside the Holy Family, shepherds, angels and kings in silence just looking, watching, gazing upon the face of Love made flesh. 

     It is a great mystery, one that requires us each year to call to mind these events in a special way to remind us of what we were made for and what completes us. We live lives often drastically void of any semblance of the quiet manger scene and the serenity of the loving touch of Jesus. Let us take advantage of this season of Christmas to carry us forward and make us strong in our commitment to both Love and Life in our world, nation, home and hearts. 

     And our eyes at last shall see Him. We have come to Bethlehem, let us now look upon our Lord and let all other things melt away as we sit in awe and wonder of His presence. 

4th Sunday Lent, Year B

With the dawn of digital photography and as photographers perfect the art, we have the ability to create some stunning photography and cinematography. What is amazing to me, and something I find fascinating, is the whole process of colorization to black and white or sepia photography. I’m not a photographer. I am still in the $60 GE point and shoot phase of photography, but I really admire those who do it well. What is so neat about colorization is that you see a deeper reality of the image – you see its true self.

I think many of us have seen digitally re-mastered movies that were either once black and white or antiquated looking and now is bright, bold and crisp. Actors and scenes we only knew through a colorless lens, now takes on a whole new personality and presence. Pictures of people like Abe Lincoln and others who only had their portraits taken before the dawn of color photography now are truly known to us in a whole new context. If you have never seen a color image of Abe Lincoln, look it up online, it really in neat.

What is also a fascinating technique is the contrast of black and white with color. There are black and white images of flowers with one flower in yellow petals. Perhaps one of the most famous examples of this technique is from the movie Schindler’s List where we see a little girl at the concentration camp wearing a red coat walking with her family. It’s a black and white film and the only color we see is that red coat. Sadly in the end, we see the red coat of the girl again, but among the deceased.

The use of color and non-color is powerful to us and can convey greater emotions, truths and realities about the subject. Adding color or partial color to a photograph of film brings it to a new context for us and we see it and experience it in new ways.

“The Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to Light, because their works were evil”.

John is telling us this weekend that the Light has come into the world to shed its rays in the darkness of our lives and to illumine and bring hope and meaning to the darkness we inhabit. The Light came into the world to save us from our darkness and bring us into the warmth, security and hope of His Light.

But, as Chronicles laments, we kept adding infidelity to infidelity and rejected the Light and remained in the darkness.

What does this mean for us?

The Father sent us His only Son into the world to save the world through the Light of His Love. This Light is to illumine all our sinfulness, our waywardness, our grief and our doubts. His Light is to be the source of knowledge, truth and wisdom. His Light is to bring us hope and joy in the midst of a troubled world. His Light is to bring new meaning and depth to a seamlessly cold and black existence.

The Light came to color our world, to color our lives, to enhance our relationship with our God.

All of us experience ‘black and white” I our lives quite often. In the midst of so many challenges, sorrows and hardships, life appears rather colorless and bleak – anything but hopeful or meaningful.

But what Christ has done for us is come into the world to bring us His Light and all that it entails and means for our lives. His Light was brought into the world precisely so our lives will no longer remain black and white images, but colorful and powerful expressions of the Love of God!

Is it always easy? Certainly not. Will we always see the Light? Probably not. Is the Light always there? Absolutely. It is always there waiting to break through the darkness of our sins, our grief, doubts, despair and hardships.

If there is Light, there must also be darkness. But, we do not have to let the darkness conquer or snuff the Light. It is our challenge in our relationship with God and as pilgrims on the journey to color our hearts and lives with that Light of the Son.

This Lent ought to be a time where we purposefully endure and experience the darkness. We are called to be out in the desert thirsty, hungry and alone so that we can come to know the power and our dependence on the Light. I challenge each of us to let us enter more and more into the Lenten sacrifice so that when Easter comes, we will glory in the Light of the Son!