Fr. Matt's Homilies

Click here for the Gospel reading.

Sven and Ole were out in an ice fishing house during a blizzard.  They heard some noises outside.  Sven said to Ole, “I suppose we should go see what’s going on.”  So they stepped outside.  They saw a blurry figure saying to them, “Come.”  So they walked over to the figure and saw that it was Jesus.  Ole said, “You know, Jesus, this isn’t really a miracle, because we walk on water all winter.  A real miracle would be if you tried lutefisk and actually liked it!”

Now the miracle in the Gospel was an actual miracle; the lakes don’t freeze over in Israel.  The fear in the Disciples was an actual fear, too.  Just as the Disciples were afraid in the storm, we have become afraid in the storms of our life…some of which are storms that seem particular to this year of 2020.

We have all been greatly affected by the Coronavirus and fears of catching it ourselves or loved ones catching it, whether it’s even safe to go to the store or to social gatherings. Speaking more on the economic and social side, we had the closing of work, schools, and churches.  Many of you have been afraid as to whether you would have the money to survive.  There’s also the fear of stagnating in our job or education.
We have been hit by the storm of racial tensions.  It’s been about 2.5 months since George Floyd’s death that has rocked the world.  There have been fears of racism and fears of violence.

Another perennial storm in our lives can be our vocation (for many of you marriage).  At one point, we were probably in the Honeymoon or Infatuation stage when we were on Cloud 9 and things seemed so wonderful.  We had great expectations for our life ahead.  And then life happened…for you maybe it was kids, health issues, job difficulties, or arguments with your spouse.  We moved into a disillusionment stage, maybe saying to ourselves, “This isn’t what I signed-up for.”

Whatever our fears are, Jesus tells us, “Be not afraid.”  True, there are many things that we can’t control…but God does not leave us without help.  He desires us to turn to Him and to trust that true peace and joy can come from Him alone.

Peter, like the other Apostles, was filled with fear from the storm and in seeing Jesus as almost like a ghost.  But when Jesus said, “It is I,” he took it to mean that it was the Lord, the God-man.  In faith, Peter asked Jesus to tell him to walk on water.  And when Jesus told him to step out of the boat, he did so because he trusted Jesus.

Yes, it’s true that Peter was the only disciple that fell into the water that night when he took his eyes off Jesus, but he was also the only disciple that walked on water.  More importantly, too, Peter was the only disciple that was saved personally by the Lord that night; the other disciples were saved collectively on the boat.

My brothers and sisters, with all of the fears that surround us in our life, are we willing like St. Peter to leave them behind in the boat?  And step out in faith towards Jesus?  Jesus who calmed the wind and the seas and gave Peter the ability to walk on water is asking us to allow Him to have greater involvement in our lives.  When we are afraid, He cherishes us when, through prayer, we relate our fear to Him through prayer and, like St. Peter, say, “Save me!”  For the ways in which we feel paralyzed, maybe most significantly in your marriage, Jesus says take that first step.  Maybe it’s working at affirming your spouse, maybe it’s seeing a Christian counselor who can help you as a trusted advocate to work through things, maybe if you would like some marriage enrichment it’s going on a Marriage Encounter weekend.  Or, maybe if you and your spouse feel like your marriage is in crisis mode, then it’s taking a look at Retrouvaille.  Retrouvaille (which is a French term for re-awakening) is what my parents went through when I was 11.  Thousands of marriages have been saved through it.  Last week I attended one of their weekend retreats for hurting couples.  The communication skills that the couples learned gave them hope that they could work through their issues including significant ones like addictions and affairs.

My brothers and sisters, Jesus is inviting us to step out of the boat, to leave behind our fears, and trust in Him greater.  May we find the peace and joy that God desires for us by knowing that Jesus is with us in the storms of our life.

 

Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time; August 2, 2020

Click here for the Gospel reading.

I was blessed to be able to be in the old Yankee Stadium before it got torn down.  I wasn’t there for a baseball game or concert, though.  In April 2008, I rode in a 15-person van with mostly people I didn’t know beforehand.  We spent a night at Notre Dame on the way out.  On a Sunday morning, we waited in-line for a few hours and then found our seats in the upper deck.  We waited in our seats for a couple hours before Mass with Pope Benedict began.  There were 60,000 of us there.  At Communion time, it took a while for the concelebrating bishops and priests to spread out throughout the stadium and give us Communion (and baseball stands are not built for the distribution of Communion!).

I think of that Mass as a modern day example of the Feeding of the Crowds.  There were about three times the people at Yankee Stadium than when Jesus fed the crowds.  We hear that there were about 5000 men in the crowd, so the total with women and children would be about 15 to 20 thousand.

The miraculous feeding of the crowds look forward to Jesus instituting the Eucharist.  The similarities are striking.  Both take place in the evening with people reclined.  Both have the same actions: “took, blessed, broke, gave.”  In both accounts, Jesus hands the broken loaves to the disciples.

My brother and sisters, we might have a wish to have been there when Jesus fed the Crowd.  I might have a wish to relive that big Mass at Yankee Stadium.  But, at every Mass, we are miraculously fed by the Lord.  At every Mass, the words of our Psalm come true: “The hand of the Lord feeds us.”  He strengthens us so that we can live out our state of life--the priesthood (in my case), married, widow, or single.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd who feeds his sheep.  May our lives become Eucharistic so that we can give the Love that we have received to others we meet.

Homily for the 17th Sunday in OT; July 26, 2020

Click here for the Gospel reading.

The year 1952.  Some of you might remember it, but I don’t.  1952 was the year when Walt Disney first announced to others that he was going to go after a project that would be called Disneyland—a place where both adults and kids could have fun together.  It was a very risky idea back then:  movies cost $1-2 million to make whereas Disneyland would be $20 million and without any guarantee of a return on investment.  The fact that Walt’s brother Roy held the money purse and was against the project (and also others on the Board of Directors were against the project) could have deadened the project.  But Walt was determined, even taking out the maximum personal loan possible of $50,000 to provide seed money for the project.  Things still looked shaky until Disney formed an agreement with ABC-Paramount.  Walt’s vision proved successful and now Disneyland is known as the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

We hear about the Pearl of great price in one of Jesus’ parables today.  I can’t help but think that Disneyland is a real life example of that parable.  To use a term from poker, Walt Disney was all-in on Disneyland.  And many people have enjoyed great memories there since then (including this guy).

In today’s Parables of the Pearl and the Treasure in the Field, what is important to realize is that there is one, singular thing that the buyer is focused on.  People today talk often about Bucket Lists…but this isn’t that.  The buyers don’t have a Bucket List…they have a Bucket Item.

My brothers and sisters, we want to have a single Bucket Item in our lives.  When we have one Bucket Item, it means every decision is based on that one priority…we are all-in.  Have you figured out what the Bucket Item is?  That we all share?  Getting to Heaven!  There’s a common phrase among the young people that is abbreviated YOLO; it stands for “You only live once.”  It means to leave nothing back and to live each day with purpose.  A Christian version of this motto would be:  “YOLO, be a saint!  You only live once, be a saint!”
Do we rightly value Heaven as our Bucket Item?  We don’t value Heaven rightly when we sin and put other things before God…when we are too attached to created things.

When we are living a purpose-driven life, every decision is based on that one priority, on that Bucket Item of getting to Heaven as a saint.  First and foremost, it means being all-in in your vocation…for married people, it means helping to get your spouse and kids to Heaven.  Aiming for being a saint will also affect decisions at work and seeing the purpose of your job.  King Solomon shows us in the first reading that a wise and understanding heart was what he most needed in his position of authority.  We might not have anywhere near the same sort of authority, but we are called by God to offer our work in service. 

As a Christian you are to see your work as an opportunity to glorify God, to promote the common good, and to support your family (rather than making work the most important thing in your life).  Getting to Heaven will also instruct you as to how you spend your Sundays…going to Mass even on vacations and after late Saturday night parties or wedding receptions.  You will also have a different approach to where your money goes (it’s not to be rich or live comfortably)…to the parish and other charities that help people in need.  Also, how to spend your free time (because it’s a gift from God)…getting involved with faith formation activities, watching only wholesome movies and shows, and avoiding websites that don’t lead to your flourishing as a person.  And through everything, aiming for making it to Heaven means praying and asking God frequently throughout the day what He would have you do.

My brothers and sisters, our Bucket Item of getting to Heaven is more important than Disneyland.  We are aiming for eternal life with God and the saints in Heaven.  Are we willing to give up anything that stands in the way of allowing Jesus to bring us to Heaven?

Click here for the Gospel reading.

Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds was easily relatable to his listeners in such a community focused on farming.  The weed that he refers to in the parable is one called darnel or cockle.  Since wheat and weed sound so similar, I’ll call the weed cockle during this homily.  So wheat and cockle look very similar in their early growing stages—in fact, a farmer would probably be unable to distinguish one from the other especially as they were intertwined.  But there is a big difference come harvest time:  the wheat could be used for bread whereas the cockle was poisonous and only really useful for burning.
My brothers and sisters, Jesus’ parable has meaning for our lives.  Our lives are a mix of both good (wheat) and bad (cockle and weeds).  At the end of our life, we will only be one or the other.  So you will either meet the fate of the wheat or that of the cockle.  By our actions, we choose to either to be burned with the cockle or to let go of the cockle in our lives and to be gathered with the wheat into God’s barn.
  
Jesus tells us that Satan, the Evil One, has planted the cockle seeds.  Some of their roots are worldliness, sensuality, and pride.  Each of our lives has cockle because each of our lives has sin. In the parable, the farmer instructs his workers to let the wheat and cockle grow together until harvest time. This means in our own lives, we will have sin until the day we die. It also means that believers will be surrounded by unbelievers during their earthly sojourn.

We all know about the analogy of a frog boiling to death in a pot of water.  The water starts off cold and then is slowly heated so that the frog chooses to stay put.  It adjusts to the warmer and warmer water until it’s too late….and you have frog legs (like at a Chinese buffet). In our culture, we are like frogs in a slowly boiling pot. Things change around us, and we don’t realize how dangerous it is for us. Too often we as Christians just go with the flow rather than doing what we need to do...jump out of the pot.

Some of the cockle in our life involve the things we watch and listen to.  How many of the series do we watch have good, wholesome characters who are working at improving themselves? When was the last time we saw a real positive portrayal of the Catholic Church or the Catholic faith in a movie? Do the people we get the news from ever bring us the news through the lens of faith? A lot of the media we consume is cockle or as the English say, rubbish. Perhaps you heard this story this past week: an Associated Press story implied that Catholic institutions too aggressively pursued funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).  Cardinal Dolan of New York weighed in saying that the story was misleading at best. Thousands of Catholic parishes and schools across the country which relied heavily on Sunday collections would have had to cut jobs if it wasn’t for the PPP program. Here at SEAS Parish and School we were recipients of PPP funds, which saved us from having to go down to a barebones staff. Our mission of helping souls get to Heaven we take seriously, so that is why in good faith we applied for the PPP funds. 

It can be tough to find wheat for our souls through the media, but things like getting some of our news from Catholic News Agency or The Catholic Spirit can help. Ever wondered what it might have been like for Jesus to call and befriend his disciples? Download “The Chosen” series (it has its own app). You might remember the free Rediscover book from about 6 years ago that almost everybody got. The reason for making that book available was that almost all Catholics never read anything about their faith. As much as we are willing to read the next great book, a Catholic book like Letters to a Young Catholic or Theology of the Body for Beginners can go a long way in helping us to become more in love with the Church of God. Or if you like fiction, the writings of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien are chalk-full of Christian allegory.

The cockle of the world also gives us false understandings of human persons. We hear so-called wise people say that religious faith is antiquated and that abortion/contraception/gender change surgery are health care. To help grow the wheat in our life, it can be real refreshing to listen to people on Relevant Radio or KTIS talk about things from a Christian perspective.

If cockle or sin is going to be with us until harvest time, we could conclude that it doesn’t matter how we live. But that would not be further from the truth! It is one thing to allow poisonous plants to grow in our field and another thing to eat that poison.  We eat the poison when we give into mortal sin or even deliberate venial sins. On the flip side, we nurture the wheat in our lives when we follow God’s commandments including worshiping him as we can on Sundays, when we are forgiven of our sins, when we resolve to avoid sin—especially mortal sins—going forward, and when are merciful to others.
My brothers and sisters, at the end of our life, will we chose to be with the cockle or the wheat?  It might seem like nobody would ever choose the cockle, but that’s what we choose every time we sin.  We are immensely blessed that Jesus, the Bread of Life, comes to us in the Eucharist.  He wants to sow good seed into our lives and transform our wheat into much good.  First, though, we have to allow Him to remove the cockle of our lives.  May we welcome God’s grace so that we can begin to be gathered as wheat into God’s barn.
 

Click here for the Gospel reading.

For my priestly retreat 1.5 years ago, I went to a retreat center south of Tucson, Arizona.  One of the first things I noticed when I drove on to the property was all of the peacocks.  They had a roosting tree for the peacocks.  I would watch every sunset as the 17 big peacocks, who can’t fly much, would fly up to the lowest branch and gradually fly up to their high perch in the tree.

Now that tree wasn’t alway like that--100 years ago it wouldn’t have been able to support those 17 peacocks.  At some point, the roosting tree might have looked like the Christmas Tree from Charlie Brown.  Such a tree certainly could not support a pride of peacocks and probably not even a sparrow.

So when Jesus says in the parable that good seed fell on fertile soil and produced 100-fold, it’s like going from the Charlie Brown tree to that peacock roosting tree.  When we allow God to grow us 100-fold, it’s not so that we can be a roosting place for birds (although I did have a seagull land on my shoulder once), but so that other people would come to know and love God through us.

The saints (like St. Francis, St. Teresa of Calcutta, and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton) are those that allowed God to grow them 100-fold.  How did they become such holy saints that drew people to God?  They practiced humility as well as docility.  We regularly focus on humility in the spiritual life, but we rarely speak of docility, so that’s what I want to speak about today.  The words “docility” and “doctor” come from the Latin word “docere,” which is to teach.  A person who is docile is, therefore, one who is teachable.  A docile person is one who hears God speak to her and then adjusts her life to reflect what she has heard God say.  

If you agree that the holiness of the saints is worth emulating and docility is something to strive for, we need to learn how we can listen to God like the saints did.  They all had an active prayer life, one which centered on silence.  Silence is the language of God.  Heaven will be full of joy but it will also be full of a good silence.  Some of the purifying that needs to take place before a just soul can enter Heaven is to make it to entirely desire silence.  It is better if we can begin to like silence in this life.  We cannot hear God’s voice if we are constantly distracted...we are like the seed that cannot grow roots.

There are some ways to grow in docility by learning to grow in silence.  We try to foster silence at key moments of the Mass so that we can reflect on God’s presence among us.  A way to grow in docility at Mass is read the Sunday readings beforehand (maybe even on the way to church).  Eucharistic Adoration, like in our Chapel which is open almost 24/7, is another place to learn silence...you could call it a School of Silence.  Walks, when we unplug from listening to music or looking at our Smart Phones, can be times to be with ourselves and with God.  As is taking in God’s creation of a sunset--whether it be with or without peacocks.  How we shut ourselves off to the world and pray is not so important as that we do it...each day.

My brothers and sisters, to allow God to grow us 100-fold from being the Charlie Brown Christmas tree into a tree the size of a peacock roosting tree, our invitation is to turn towards God humbly and with a listening, docile ear.  We listen less to the things of the world and listen more to what God says to us silently in prayer.  This is what the saints did and what we can do to be holy like them.
 

What is fulfilling in our life?  Our world gives us one message.  We are living in a material world, and we are often thought of as consumers.  Companies try to get us to buy the fastest cars, to make us look as youthful as possible (“Fr. Matt, how about getting the gray out of your hair?”), and to own the newest gadgets (can you believe that the iPhone is 13 years old?!).  We spend much time and energy planning the “perfect” vacation, 4^th of July party, or wedding (and much of that planning goes out the window during the Coronavirus)?  After we buy those products or have those special events, we might feel happy for a while but then we start after that next thing that we vow will make us permanently happy.

Spiritual goods are a bit different.  They are not all that enticing from the get-go and we have to labor for them.  How often have you heard someone say, “When I retire, I’m going to pray 4 hours every day”?  I guess Pope Benedict would be one.  In my experience, though, and maybe it’s the same for you, when I do find a little time to pray, I come away from that time with a peace that I can’t find in any of that material stuff.  And I find that the next time I labor to find time to pray, it gets a little easier to make it work.  The happiness we get when we hear God speak to us is a joy that remains with us even when things get tough.

Today’s Gospel tells us something about what is fulfilling in life.  Jesus speaks about the benefit of lasting fulfillment in the Gospel:  “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  To find that lasting fulfillment isn’t easy to do, though.  Jesus’ language is strong:  “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  Our love for Him must be even greater than our love for family members.  Jesus was not doing away with the importance of families, but was saying that love of God is absolute and unconditional.  In other words, the fact that we are adopted as part of God’s family through Baptism is more important than belonging to our human family.

Why does Jesus say that loving him—loving God—is so important?  As the Book of Deuteronomy states, we are to love God with “our whole heart, mind, and strength”—in other words, with every fiber of our being.  God made us for such an all-encompassing love.  If we do not nurture and take care of our love of God, it will die.

When we love God completely, we can love others more deeply.  Our love of people and created things then becomes defined by loving them in the measure in which they are loved by God.  These lesser loves—like love of spouse, love of parents or children, love of neighbor, love of creation—are enriched, purified, and encouraged to grow when we love God.  Our love becomes less self-centered (we have less of an ego) and we become more other-focused.  A person who loves God becomes more human.  Loving God is the short-cut to loving others.  We can appreciate their God-given dignity.  The choice isn’t between either loving God or loving things, but either truly loving both God and created things or loving neither.

So how do grow in our love of God?  Loving God is especially shown by expressing thanks.  If God is the giver of every good thing, it pleases Him when we thank Him for His Gifts.  Something I have been doing for the last 15 months or so is keeping a list of 3 to 5 things I’m grateful for each day.  I would encourage you all to develop that Attitude of Gratitude by writing down at least 3 things each day you are thankful for.

Another way we grow in our love of God—and love of others—is in following Jesus’ words: “Take up your cross.”  This is the first reference to the Cross in Matthew’s Gospel; points to the disciples’ destiny.  The phrase is especially startling if we reflect on the deeper meaning:  to “take up your cross” means, like Jesus, to carry a crossbeam to our own crucifixion.  It sometimes means to rely on God in our everyday burdens, but it means more than that.  God is calling us to die to self every day.  We grow in love of God by struggling each day (at least in little ways) to overcome defects of character, laziness, selfishness.  It’s a struggle but we begin to think and act more like Christ.  We love God when our whole life—even our work and leisure—is an unceasing search for him.

My brothers and sisters, as we still find ourselves attracted to and attached to material things, our invitation is to turn to God for the greater spiritual goods.  By loving Him, we will find joy, live lives of thanksgiving, and love other things properly.  May we grow in love of God so we can also grow in the love of other people.
 

Click here for the Gospel reading.

Everyone in the Twin Cities knows about Mary Jo Copland, because of her work with the homeless.  I have read her biography, and I’m sure some of you are familiar with her background.  Her childhood was not all that cheery; for one thing, she grew up with an abusive dad.  She learned to turn toward God in prayer, and she continues to do so today.  Last I heard, she starts her day with 2 hours before the Blessed Sacrament every day from like 2:30-4:30 a.m. while most of the country is still sleeping.

Mary Jo’s personal troubled upbringing is reflective of our shared history—from our shared first parents of Adam and Eve.  As described in our 2nd reading, we have all contracted Original Sin.  Original Sin is a type of impoverishment.  Just as the actions of Mary Jo’s father impoverished her, we are all impoverished by Adam’s sin.  As a result of Adam’s sin, none of us are born children of God…none of us are born in right relationship with God.

That’s why we need Baptism.  St Paul says in our 2nd reading that God’s Grace is stronger than the effects of that Original Sin. Grace is God’s free gift—something that we cannot initially earn or merit by our own efforts. Jesus restored our relationship to God by dying for us on the Cross.
 
Just as Mary Jo was wounded by her own father, we have been wounded by the sins of others.  All of us have been wounded by the sin of our first father, Adam.  We go through life now spiritually crippled, which includes the following defects: more inclined to sin, knowledge of God’s ways isn’t always intuitive, and we are enslaved to our passions.  We are tempted by the Devil (just as Adam was). The Devil hates us and wants to destroy our body and soul in Gehenna (also known as Hell), as Jesus described in the Gospel. Jesus our Savior, on the other hand, wants to heal our woundedness, especially from our own sins, and to give us freedom to live as true children of God. He heals us most especially through God’s Word in the Bible and the Sacraments.

Baptism is how the Grace of Jesus is first poured into our lives. The rest of our lives are spent trying to live out our baptismal call. It used to be that Catholics, without question, would bring their children to baptism shortly after birth.  Even though infant mortality is much lower than it used to be, it is still advisable to not delay baptism…even babies can use grace in their earliest days. We try to stay in right relationship with God, sometimes called a state of grace, the rest of our lives, particularly after we reach an age when we start sinning.  When our relationship with God has been ruptured, God asks us to make an Act of Contrition and to go to Confession.

To help us better understand how Grace works, I’m going to use the example of superheroes (which comes to us from Fr. Mike Schmitz).  Some of you know superheroes well and others not so-well (for those people, superheroes are people with special powers).  How the superheroes receive their superhero powers can stand for the different views about how grace operates in a soul. So I will share a couple of incorrect beliefs of grace before sharing the Catholic belief of grace.

Most people know Batman…Batman is a superhero without God’s grace…his superhero powers come from just building up his own strength.  

Ironman, a superhero who flies around in a suit, is a “Lutheran superhero”—his powers aren’t a part of himself (they come from his suit), so he doesn’t have his powers when he is not in his suit. [Martin Luther believed that grace is like snow that covers a dung heap]

Captain America—a patriotic superhero who holds a shield with a star on it—is the superhero who shows the Catholic version of Grace.  Steve Rogers, the identity of Captain America, is always the same person—whether he is fighting bad guys or cleaning his house.  He was just a normal human before he took the Super Soldier Syrum, the material that stands for grace in this example.  Following the taking of that syrum, he had abilities that no other human has: he could run about 60 miles per hour and have the strength of 30 men.  Going back to Grace—for Catholics, Grace elevates our fallen human nature over and above what we can have by our own ability.  For example, unconditional love—the love that God has for us—is given to us through grace (such as in the Sacraments) so that we can truly love others as God loves them. God gives us spiritual gifts, sort of like superhero powers, especially through Confirmation that are to be used for the good of others. Going back to Mary Jo Copeland, it seems like God has given her a special gift of mercy to the poor...the poor have a special place in her heart because the poor have a special place in God’s heart.

My brothers and sisters, our invitation this day is to rely on God’s grace, sort of like Captain America and even more so like the example of Mary Jo. Are we convinced that we can’t love as we ought to unless we spend every day in prayer—and at least once a week before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Do we run to Confession to get healed when Satan strikes a mortal blow through mortal sin? It’s Father’s Day...and we honor that true fatherhood comes from God (and not from our first father, Adam). Do we—especially us men, whom Satan attacks particularly because he can often bring down others with us—take up our spiritual weapons? Asking for the help of our Blessed Mother, who was given a special grace to avoid sin altogether, is especially powerful against the Devil since he can’t stand her humility.

My brothers and sisters, we are affected by the Sin of Adam, but moreso beneficiaries of God’s grace. May we live in his grace this day and every day so that we can truly love others as God loves them.
 

Click here for the Gospel reading.

Our readings today show us that the Body and Blood of Jesus affects in us 3 primary ways.  The Body and Blood of Jesus unites us, strengthens us, and brings us to eternal life.
Firstly, the Body and Blood of Jesus unites us. Why did God choose bread and wine as the materials for Holy Communion? God could have chosen anything for the Eucharist.  Not to be flippant, but He could have chosen bananas and milk. However, bread and wine are fitting for Communion.  This is because bread and wine are common nourishment in almost every culture. Holy Communion is the sacrament of spiritual eating, so it uses foods that are often used in physical eating.
More importantly, there’s something deeper, though, about grains of wheat and grapes. There are many grains of wheat that go into making a loaf of bread. There are many grapes that go into making a cup of wine. Similarly, there are many Christians that go into making the Church—the Mystical Body of Christ. If you look at the saints or at Christians around the world, there is much diversity. Whatever we look like, whatever our social-economic status is, we are all the Body of Christ.
The motto could have been for seminary: “Enter seminary, see the world!” Rome, the Holy Land, learning Spanish in Mexico, visiting our Archdiocesan mission parish in Venezuela, and teaching English in South Korea. The Catholic faith and the Mass is the same throughout the world even with differences in language and culture. Saints were formed by their cultures—whether it be Saint Francis in Assisi, Saint Andrew Kim and the Korean martyrs, the Cristeros in Mexico, or a bit more local: Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Blessed Solanus Casey and Blessed Stanley Rother. Even in our local church, every parish has its own gifts and challenges: Our Lady of Grace in Edina has its own gifts and challenges, so do we here at SEAS, and so does St. Peter Clavier—the historic African American parish in St. Paul.
Secondly, the Body and Blood of Jesus strengthens us. We are reminded in our 1^st Reading how the Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. They were grumbling and lacking trust even at the beginning. God was faithful in providing manna to them every day but the Sabbath (on which they would eat leftovers from the previous day). God was always with them in their pilgrimage…and God is always with us in our pilgrimage to Heaven. The Body and Blood of Jesus gives us strength from God to overcome obstacles like sin in the world.
Jesus is really present in every Tabernacle around the world.  There is only 1 Catholic church now in Hastings, but there are three other Tabernacles: one at the new school Chapel, one at Regina, and one at the rectory. A good act of faith we can do is to make the sign of the cross whenever we drive or walk past a place with a Tabernacle.  In addition, as we have talked about Eucharistic Adoration before, it is an act of love to spend time with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration. That is why as part of Confirmation preparation, our students are required to spend some time in Eucharistic Adoration. The most personal relationship we can have with Jesus is when we receive His Body and Blood at Mass and then spend time with Him in adoration.
Thirdly and lastly, the Body and Blood of Jesus brings us to eternal life. In the Gospel, Jesus says, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.”  It’s pretty clear that Jesus wants us to eat His Body and drink His Blood.  This requirement of Jesus is why we have 1^st Communion prep (date set for August 9^th) for those who reach the age of reason (often around 7 years old…when a child can make moral choices).
The fact that the Body and Blood of Jesus brings us to eternal life is most especially seen in what is called Viaticum.  Viaticum, which is Latin for “food for the journey”, refers to the last reception of Holy Communion right before death.  When someone asks for Last Rites, priests offer the Anointing of the Sick and the Apostolic Pardon and, for those who are able, Confession and Viaticum.  Right before someone goes off to the eternal feast of Heaven, how fitting it is for people to receive the panis angelicus, the bread of angels, the Eucharist.
My brothers and sisters, the Body and Blood of Jesus unites us, strengthens us, and brings us to eternal life. May our lives be Eucharistic—that is, in Thanksgiving—to our God who is always with us.
 

Click here for the Gospel reading.

One of the most intelligent writers in the history of the Church was St. Augustine. He spent over 30 years writing his account of the Trinity. [the following is taken from Marian Horvat, “Augustine and the Sea Shell.” https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/h065rp.Shell.html] One day he was walking by the seashore contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.

Augustine asked him, “My boy, what are doing?”

“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied.

“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.

The boy paused, stood up, looked at the Saint, and replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence…”

The Holy Trinity is the greatest truth of Christianity. But as the boy reminded St. Augustine, it is also a great mystery.  God isn’t just one person but the Holy Trinity—a communion of three persons.  Each Person is fully God.  The Trinity—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—never act alone but always together.

Our communities are to be modeled after the perfection of the Holy Trinity.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit love each other completely.  Their love has extended to all of creation.  We count in the Heavenly community those angels and saints whose love has been perfected like the Trinity.

The Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is a communion of persons, too, that matures in the love of the Trinity.  When we look at individual members—whether it be inwards at ourselves or outwards at others—we realize that we are still in need of being perfected by God’s love.  Although we are members of the universal Church, we experience the Church typically in our parish of SEAS.  In a community such as a parish or a family (which is also called a domestic church), we learn to love the invisible God by loving those we live with.

Our city is also called to be a communion of persons—families living together in harmony.  We are to strive for the common good, including “liberty and justice for all.”  Sometimes our neighbors are very different from ourselves—different beliefs, different political persuasions, different races—but we are all called to love each other whole-heartedly.  And as Christians, we believe that every person is created in the image and likeness of God. If we ever view another person as an enemy, we can pray to God that we would see them as our brother or sister.

I had the opportunity to attend a rally for clergy of all creeds on Tuesday in St. Paul in response to everything surrounding the death of George Floyd.  Being white and Catholic, I was definitely in the minority at the rally, although Archbishop Hebda and a few other priests were there.  I appreciated coming together with those other clergy—most of whom seemed on the surface to be rather different than myself—to pray to God to bring peace to our city.

St. Paul in the Second Reading tells us that “the God of love and peace will be with you” if we do particular actions for the sake of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ:  rejoice, stop sinning, encourage, agree, live in peace, and greet even your non-friends.  The Holy Spirit makes these actions possible, because God wants to unite the human family.  In contrast, left to our own inclination to sin and the devil’s desire to divide humanity, we know too well how communities fail in unity and instead are at each other’s throats.

Brothers and sisters, if we want to grow into greater unity, we do well to pray to the God of unity.  Many of our Catholic prayers including the “Glory Be” & even the Sign of the Cross remind us of the unity of the Holy Trinity.  We were baptized in the name of the Trinity and we are forgiven of our sins at Confession in the name of the Trinity.  The Holy Trinity comes to dwell within us every time we receive Communion. May we pray to God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—so that all of our communities may grow in love and unity.
 

With a last name like Shireman, you might expect me to be a big Lord of the Rings fan. Actually, I’m not all that versed in it, but I do think it is an epic series that has a deep plot, in thanks to the giftedness of Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien. The hobbit Frodo at one point in the opening book [The Fellowship of the Ring] says, “I miss the Shire.” We might say that to miss our homeland is a very human sentiment, although apparently it is also a very hobbit sentiment.
 
There is something similar going on in today’s feast. After Jesus’ Resurrection and 40 days with His disciples, it is now time for Jesus to return to where He came from—the Father’s House in Heaven.
 
In the reading from Acts, we heard that The Disciples were looking intently at the sky where Jesus had left Earth and entered Heaven. The Disciples have a mixed set of emotions—they are joyful because they believe Jesus’ words that it is better for Him to return to the Father so that they can send the Holy Spirit.  But they are also experiencing grief...that Jesus is no longer located with them. I would venture a guess that they all had the human sentiment in their hearts: “we are going to miss him—his human speech, his human way of acting, of looking, of smiling, of making us feel loved.”

I think we can all relate to this type of very human sentiment during the pandemic because we, too, are experiencing grief and loss.  We are experiencing grief over not being able to be around loved ones. This is intensified if it involves a loved one who is dying or who has died.  We are experiencing grief over things that have been radically changed--whether it be jobs, graduations, Confirmations, 1st Communions.  We are also experiencing grief over not having public Mass and not being able to receive Jesus sacramentally through the Eucharist.

During this pandemic, I have often heard expressed (and felt personally) a rather human desire: “I can’t wait for things to be back to normal.” It’s another similar sentiment to what Frodo had expressed for the Shire. Much later, when Frodo does return to the Shire, however, things are not the same.  Why? Because Frodo has changed and the world has changed.

Even as we prepare to have public Masses resume, things are going to be different, because we have changed...and the world has changed. Since the obligation to attend Mass will continue to be lifted, many of our fellow parishioners won’t be able to join us in-person (like the elderly and those with underlying health issues). In fact, the Masses at care facilities that Father Dave and I celebrated before the pandemic will probably be suspended until a vaccine is developed. At least initially, music will be limited at Mass to reduce the spread of droplets. To help with social distancing before, during, and after Mass, you’ll be spread out in our church so that you probably won’t get to sit in your normal seat. And this might be the most difficult for me and for the kids and kids-at-heart—we won’t be able to have donuts after Mass or socialize on church property.
In the Bible following the Ascension, it is apparent that God’s will for the Disciples is that they don’t return to normalcy...to what things were like during Jesus’ public ministry or during the joyful 40 days after the Resurrection. The Disciples were given 10 short days to prayerfully prepare for the sending of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church at Pentecost. It is easy to see that the Disciples and the world were changed forever on Easter Sunday. It is also true that they are changed again forever on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit filled them with zeal to carry out Jesus’ final orders as we heard in the Gospel: to make it their work to make every person a student in the School of Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, our natural human desires, including the desire to see God face-to-face, will be most perfectly fulfilled in Heaven. Our desire to be with our loved ones without any restrictions—will also be fulfilled in Heaven. Jesus waits for us there.  As does our Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, and some of our loved ones.  But we have work to do...God is sending us on mission to share Jesus with others in this world that has changed by the pandemic. Two-thirds of Americans say that through the pandemic God is trying to get our attention to change our behavior. God has given us faith and each other, members of Christ’s body, to persevere through this difficult time. But there are so many people broken right now and feeling so helpless...they need us to tell them that God loves them. God loves them so much that Jesus died and rose for them and is now in Heaven waiting for them to make it home. So if “returning to normal” means keeping our faith private, then that is not something we can desire. But if “returning to normal” means going back to our mission of sharing God’s love with others, then that’s something we pray for. We have been filled with the Holy Spirit like the Disciples at Pentecost. And we have been changed forever...to help others’ forevers be changed.
 

Click here for the Sunday Gospel.

We just heard Jesus state in the Gospel, “I am the Gate for the sheep.”  This is one of the lesser known “I am” statements from Jesus. For example, we are a bit more familiar with “I am the Bread of Life,” “I am the Way the Truth and the Life,” and “I am the Good Shepherd.”  It is more difficult to get our minds around what Jesus means by “I am the Gate for the sheep.”

The Apostles experienced Jesus as the Gate of their lives when they rested securely in Him. Jesus called them from various walks of life—from professions that were not of high esteem in the eyes of the world—and formed a community with Him at the center and them as the pillars. They first experienced Jesus as the Gate when they were called to be His Disciples, but they would also experience the security of being in Jesus at moments like the Feeding of the Multitudes, the Last Supper, and encountering the Risen Lord after 3 days of extreme anguish surrounding His death.

I think, too, that we all as the Lord’s sheep have also experienced Jesus as the Gate.  Jesus is the Gate of our life when we experience God’s love and grace in deep ways. Jesus is Our Gate when we find true rest in the Lord, when we have all been brought to the peaceful pastures of the Lord.  Some of these times or experiences are none other than the Sacraments: at our Baptism, at our 1st Communion, at our Confirmation, at your Marriage (or in my case, at my Ordination). Other moments of being safe in the Lord follows some not-so-good moments: being restored to our relationship with God through Confession...after our sins had ruptured that relationship.

My brothers and sisters, the Lord is calling us: “come rest in my pastures.” We all have a choice:  either to rest in the Lord’s pastures or to leave the Gate and put ourselves at risk to the world’s temptations. We as Americans focus too much on “doing” rather than “being.” Prior to this pandemic, we all have had the experience of being at a social gathering when we meet someone who says, “Tell me about yourself.” For us adults, we almost at once talk about our occupation.  Now that’s certainly part of who we are. But notice the things we chose not to say in that moment: “I’m a husband” or “I’m a mother” or “I’m a Christian.”

As we continue to be limited in what we can control during this pandemic, one thing we can still control is whether we rest in the Lord. These days, a lot of people (especially dads), who are either working from home or have lost work, are finding more time to spend with their families than they have ever had.  Some doctors, nurses, and others on the frontline turn to prayer before, during, and after their shifts—and they can even experience the Lord’s peace even when death and sickness surrounds them. Consider that outside of the pandemic, many of us find it difficult to budget time for important things like: prayer, a retreat every year or two, or spending time with family. If we have more time in our schedules these days, then this is the best time to develop good habits of prayer and virtue so that we can try to keep those up when life gets busier.

Just as God wants to bring good things out of this pandemic, the Devil wants to bring about evil.  The Devil wants to bring us away from the Gate and to distract us, because when we are distracted, we cannot rest in the Lord.  Sports can be a distraction, although not right now (unless you start watching Korean baseball). Work and kids’ activities can be distractions but probably less-so right now.  Watching shows and using apps on the phone are common modern distractions as are the perennial sins of the passions like over-eating, getting drunk, and using porn. It’s a fact of human life that at times we will feel isolated, bored, stir crazy, or lacking a sense of control.  All of those are heightened during this pandemic. We can either jump away from the gate and go to places that aren’t going to be for our own good. Or we can turn to Jesus, the Gate, who will give us His Peace and His Love and His Rest.

My brothers and sisters, my prayer is that you would relate to Jesus as the Gate—the Gate that leads you to restful pastures and eternal life.