St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Genesis 2, 18-24 + Psalm 128 + Hebrews 2, 9-11 + Mark 10, 2-16

The Gospel today reminds us that ultimately the work of Jesus Christ was to restore us to the conditions of Paradise, to take us back home, back to that “Garden”, into that relationship with God once marked by obedience, fidelity, and love. The inspired writer of these verses from Genesis was interested only in asserting the equality of woman. In human terms, she is not a different kind of being from man, and is not inferior to him. She is his partner and equal. Being a “helpmate” does not imply that she is less. The union between them is so great and strong that there can be no question of breaking it without destroying their very identity. So this text is about equality between man and woman. That is what Adam is proclaiming when he says that she is “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh”. It is a declaration of equality. They are equal. They are one.

On the basis of this understanding then Jesus says to those who would trap him that God’s plan matters more than a man-made plan, with this “arrangement” that permitted a man to divorce a woman for any frivolous reason while a woman had not right to divorce whatsoever. Jesus is turning the whole system upside down using the divorce example to confront injustice and the abuse of one person by another. While these verses may lead us off to wonderful reflections on marriage, they are really a headlong confrontation of Jesus with a cultural system that accommodates the power of one over another and tolerates the abuse of one by another. This is not God’s will.

Unity, and oneness is God’s will. So the healing of what is broken and the restoration of all the wonderful conditions of Paradise is the work of Jesus Christ. Recovering what was lost with leaving Paradise is what Jesus called, “The Reign of God.” Jesus has come to take us there, to take us home. He began that work at the very spot where the Father’s plan was interrupted by the choice of Adam and Eve to be disobedient and unfaithful. He began at a wedding in Cana. A wedding, a marriage, this magnificent union of man and woman is a sign of our hope and intention to live within the Reign of God.

This text is not a condemnation of people who have experienced the tragedy of divorce. It is an affirmation that it is not good to be alone. It is an affirmation that God has chosen man and woman to be equal partners united with God in the continuing work of creation. So to decide to build a life with another is to make an act of faith proclaiming publicly, the power of possibility. It is to declare faith in the future. When a man and woman stand before God and say, “I do,” they are really saying, “I do believe. I do believe that my tomorrows will be better because of this person I marry today. I do believe in starting a family. I do believe in continuing what began with that first man and woman.” In this way, countless men and women who enter into marriage affirm that mystery, and they proclaim that they will care for one another, no matter what. They proclaim that they believe that their future together will be brighter because this other person is a part of it. They are saying: we are part of a story stretching back to the beginnings of time. And they are saying something more: we want to continue the story, by becoming a family to one another, and welcoming children, and letting God continue his creative work. There is nothing more pro-life than that. Respecting life is about being open to life, every blessed second of it, in all its wonder and disappointments and challenges and setbacks and joys. It is saying yes to the ongoing miracle of creation, no matter how small or needy or imperfect it might be. The mystery and wonder of a woman and a man who say “yes” to God’s call to share in the ongoing creation of the world is the most visible and concrete testimony to faith we could ask for.

We will stand in a just a moment and recite the Creed to give witness to our faith and our unity while all around us in this place there are living witnesses to faith and unity in the marriages that give us all cause to rejoice. It is not good to be alone, and that is why it is so good to be here as church, as family, as faithful people who seek to know, obey, and find peace in doing the will of God and completing the work of Jesus Christ.

September 27, 2015   St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Numbers 11, 25-29 + Psalm 19 + James 5, 1-6 + Mark 9, 38-43, 45, 47-48

John sounds like a second grader on the playground complaining to the teacher that the big kids will not let him play. Again the apostles do not look so good, and the unflattering image of them we have been given the last two weeks gets one more example here. First Peter had to be put in his place behind Jesus, and then Jesus embraced a little child and spoke to them about service and being last instead of being first. John has heard all of this, and I think he does not particularly like this idea, so he changes the subject.

There are two problems that surface here with John and his friends. He clearly does not understand the meaning of the word, “disciple” which means, one who learns discipline from another. He does not understand the meaning of the word “apostle” either, because an apostle is one who is sent by another. Up to this point, they have not been disciples. They have not learned any discipline from the Master. They keep thinking it’s all about them. Their whole motive thus far in staying with Jesus is their gain. They are there because they look good hanging around Jesus of Nazareth. He’s famous, and they are close to him. They belong to an exclusive group of insiders. They think they should control who gets to see Jesus and who does not. They are clearly not ready to be sent anywhere.

John’s second problem is even more serious. He does not understand that being called to discipleship is a vocation to collaborate in God’s plan for humanity. If they had understood and accepted God’s plan as they saw it unfolding in the work of Jesus Christ, they would have been excited that someone else was successful in the struggle with evil. Instead of whining to Jesus about another person driving out a demon, they would have run up to that person rejoicing that someone was joining in the work; but they cannot do that. They are too convinced of their privileged position and completely threatened by the success of another. Instead of looking ahead toward the reign of God and Christ’s victory over death and sin, they are looking around at each other wondering who is going get the best seat, and who belongs and who does not.

The grace of God is unruly, and the Holy Spirit blows where it will. Our experience ought to tell us that we have no control over either one. Instead of being jealous and competitive, we ought to be full of excitement, admiration, and gratitude when someone excels, finds success, and in their own way with their own gifts contributes to the work of Christ in this world. Jealousy is a dark and ugly emotion that drives us away from one another and ultimately from God. A true disciple and one called to be an apostle will have their gaze fixed upon the giver of all good gifts. They will not be looking from side to side at people who are different and have different gifts. They will know from their loving relationship to Christ that they already have all that they need, and there will be no need to feel or act important. John’s concern is that there are others who, in his words, “do not follow us.” He thinks his way is the only way, forgetting that it is really about God’s way which seems by all accounts to be bigger and more inclusive than we can imagine.

There is nothing here to suggest that it is meaningless to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. There is a close link between Jesus and the disciples reflected in the solidarity of the community. When someone offers a disciple a cup of water, they give it to Christ so tight is the bond with Christ. The community, the church formed by the Holy Spirit living the very life of Christ is as open and inclusive as Christ was to Tax Collectors, Samaritans, Pharisees, women and lepers. This says a great deal to this world today struggling with the challenge of countless refugees fleeing violence and hopeless poverty. Our privileged life cannot make us exclusive. It must make us troubled and anxious to show them the face of Christ and the mercy of God. These hands, these feet, these eyes Jesus speaks of today are tools with which we see the face of Christ, lift up and hold up the fallen, and walk with them into a life that is very reign of God. This is the discipline of a disciple, and for this we have been chosen in faith and sent out in ways we could never have imagined.

St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Wisdom 2:12, 17-20 + Psalm 54 + James 3, 16-4, 3 + Mark 9, 30-37

Again the location is important. It is Capernaum. We are in the home territory now, and the mood is quiet and intimate. I find it interesting that Jesus does not rebuke or even complain that the apostles are talking about their privileges while he speaks of being handed over to death. Ancient tradition has proposed that the influence of Peter upon Mark’s Gospel can be noted throughout this Gospel. I suspect this is one of those incidents that has Peter as its source. How else would Mark know this since it was away from the crowd and in the privacy of Capernaum that this scene takes place? The silence of the Apostles when Jesus inquires about their discussion is remarkable. It would be easy to dismiss this detail by suggesting that they were embarrassed when Jesus inquired about their lively discussion. On the other hand, I would like to suggest there might be another reason for their silence. Why not imagine that finally what he was saying to them was really beginning to sink in, and they were simply silenced in awe and wonder and perhaps feeling some fear.

He has been challenging their ideas about God and about a Messiah continually. His whole life has been one constant revelation of his Father, and this “Father” is not living up their expectations, and they are beginning to catch on. They may not know what lies ahead, but this God Jesus calls, “Father” is not much like they had imagined. Then comes the final blow to their old ideas of power and privilege as he calls for a child and in a rare and tender gesture, he puts his arms around the child and proposes that God is like a child! “Whoever welcomes a child welcomes me, not me, but the one who sent me.” God is like a child! That proposal is enough to leave you silent.

No more talk of power. No more images of a distant ruler with a big stick and a book of rules.  No more talk of wrath and punishment. No more hiding out of fear or running away because a gentle shepherd is always searching, and this “father” is always waiting with a ring and robe. The contrast between their old ideas and what Jesus reveals is almost too much for them and perhaps for us as well. We like to hang on to those old images and expectations of God because that is a God we made or made-up. It is a God far too much like us instead of a God who is with us. We like that old idea of God because it justifies our hiding and our denial and fear and it excuses too much of our behavior when we are judgmental and comfortable with alienation. This God Jesus reveals is a God who serves and provides, a God who wants to forgive offences not punish and take revenge.

On the way to Capernaum, Jesus said to those who were with him: “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men who will put him to death.” When we fail to seriously explore the mystery of Jesus Christ and what it reveals about God, death, and resurrection, we are left to think that Judas is the one who delivered Jesus Christ in the hands of men. But that is not so. Neither Judas nor the Chief Priests delivered Jesus Christ into the hands of men. God did. God sent his son, his only son, into this world to be delivered up. When that truth sinks in something within us must shift and change when we begin to think and imagine God. At first it may seem cruel, but that is a remnant of the old idea that the apostles were clinging to. In truth, it is act of love and compassion that reveals to us how desperately and totally God enters into the human condition.

Making this shift or embracing this revelation moves us from thinking that God is some powerful fixer or frightening judge to discovering that God is with us in all things good and bad; living with, suffering with, and rejoicing with us always. Failing to grasp what is being revealed by this little child image Jesus proposes is what leads people to give up on God or get angry with God when a tragedy strikes. When I hear people say things like: “How could God let this happen?” or “Where is God when we need him?” I know they are like the apostles who have not yet understood the image of the little child Jesus embraces. The cry of someone holding on to that old image of God looks at the faces of those thousands of refugees fleeing the violence of Syria today and wonders how is it possible for a good God let this happen again and again. “Why doesn’t God do something?” they wonder. While the revelation we get from a little child in the arms of Jesus is that God is among those refugees waiting for us to do something. What we do for them, we do for God. The mother of a three year old refugee child washed up dead on a beach cries out in anguish, and that cry is the voice of God crying out over the conditions that caused them to flee in fear to begin with. We must get deep into this wonder of the Father Jesus reveals.

One way to do that is to listen and learn from the prayer of Jesus himself in the most dramatic and tragic moment of his life. In the garden on the night before he died, his prayer tells us everything about his relationship with his father: “Let this cup pass from me, BUT ( and there is the important part of the prayer ) Thy will be done.” It is a prayer of surrender, but not surrender to violence, but a surrender of the old and inadequate image of a God who is going to come riding in a put things right. It is, at the same time, a witness to the God Jesus reveals, a God who has taken on the entire reality of human life, a God who is never closer than when we are in trouble or afraid. In this truth we find the hope that can lead us though the darkest of hours.

Saint Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Wisdom 2, 12, 17-20 + Psalm 54 + James 3, 16-4, 3 + Mark 9, 30-37

To get very deep into these verses catching on the little details is very helpful. The placement of this conversation is an important clue to its understanding. Caesarea Philippi was built by Caesar on top of 100 foot cliff from which a very powerful spring of water emerges the source and headwaters of the Jordan River. Now think of this source, the cool, fresh, spring of water that forms the Jordan as an image of Christ. Around those springs, people before the Israelites had built temples to various gods. Caesar, being a “god” for the Romans builds an enormous and beautiful city on top of it all right there on the side of the tallest Mountain in present day Syria, Mount Hermon. It is snow covered most of the year. Waterfalls, springs, trees, birds, wild animals of all varieties find a home on Mt Hermon towering over the desert. To this place, Jesus comes. In this setting Jesus speaks about building upon a rock, the rock of Peter’s faith. In that place there was evidence and memory of other gods and religious now in ruins, and now above it all, built on a rock, is this city of Caesar. If Jesus were to stage this conversation our time, I like imaging that he would take us to the strip in Las Vegas! He has something to propose in contrast to all of that glitz, glitter, wealth, and power.

With all that in mind, we can explore and be fed by this Word, and let Jesus speak to us as he did those disciples. Peter and his friends just do not grasp what Jesus says. Peter gives the right answer to the question, but he is like someone who cheats on a test. They get the answer right, but they don’t know why or what it means. Those disciples hold on to their ideas of a Messiah. They expect the Messiah to come more powerful than the Romans and restore their memories of the Israel’s glory days. They want no talk of suffering and death from this Messiah they have recognized but not understood.

They dream of power and privilege. He speaks of suffering and death. They think that suffering is something imposed upon victims like themselves. He speaks of suffering accepted and embraced out of love. They want to tell him how to be Messiah. They want to lead him into their plan, but just as they want nothing to do with his talk, he will have nothing to do with theirs. To Peter who is now in the way, so to speak, he says; “You belong behind me, not in front. Get back to where you belong. I lead, you follow.”

A great spiritual writer from the last century proposed there are two kinds of suffering: one that is imposed or caused, and another suffering that is chosen or embraced. Here is the difference between Peter’s idea of suffering and that of Jesus. Peter reacts to suffering imposed or caused, and he wants none of it. Jesus chooses a suffering which is transformed because of his willingness into an expression of love, and so his suffering sets in motion the work of grace and redemption.

Often our failure to make a distinction between suffering imposed and suffering chosen causes us to miss the powerful sign and message that comes to us in the passion of Christ. Peter and his friends failed to figure that out. Unable to accept or comprehend this message of love and follow through to the work of redemption it accomplished, they slipped into denial and went on with their silly and superficial competition over who was the greatest. Jesus did not fail to make that distinction, and he chose and accepted his suffering first of all because of his love for his father, and then because of his love for us as his way of completing the incarnation, completing his complete identification and unity with us by embracing even the reality of human suffering transforming it into an act of love resulting in our redemption. After all, restoring our unity with God is exactly what “redemption” is all about.

In my own wonder and reflection about this unique revelation of our faith, I have begun to understand and appreciate compassion and the powerful role this experience or this response to suffering can have on us all. Way more than pity, more even than sadness over another’s suffering, compassion begins with God who sees us alienated, suffering, helpless, and hurting and sends his Son to become one with us in that very condition. It is important to remember and realize that God’s Son did not come to take away suffering and pain. He came to share it with us so that we would not be alone and think God had abandoned us. Touched by this divine compassion, we can authentically enter into the suffering and pain of another as an action that can heal and restore us all to oneness with God.

Here is the three part lesson Jesus gives teaching us what the attitude of a true disciple must be: Deny, Take up the Cross, and Follow. Denying self means more than not being shellfish. It means a fundamental shift in one’s values. It means we begin to see Jesus and God as they really are, not the way we would like them to be. Taking up the cross is not about poor health or out petty inconveniences. It means sharing with Christ the work of salvation and doing so all the way to the end. Losing one’s life does not mean becoming a martyr. It means that God’s plan and God’s will becomes ours. That is what it means to lose one’s life.

All of this leads to glory, and Jesus bids us to focus our attention on the glory that the Father will give to the Son in which we too will share, according to our deeds.

Memorial Mass + September 11, 2015 + St Peter the Apostle Church in Naples, FL

Isaiah 43, 1-4 + Psalm XXX + 1 Peter 2, 20-25 + Luke 24, 13-35

This is Memorial Mass has become an annual tradition at St Peter the Apostle Church where a piece of steal from the World Trade Center is kept as a relic out of respect for the lives lost on that day. Many members of this parish come from New York and New Jersey, and many of them have families there affected by the attack on the World Trade Center. Rescue workers from southwest Florida were among the first to arrive and assist in the rescue and search for the dead. At this Mass members of the East Naples/Golden Gate Fire Department and the Collier County Police and Sheriff’s deptuties are in attendance for the prayers and support of the local community in thanksgiving for the many ways they risk their lives everyday for the safety of the local citizens. So this Mass is more than a Memorial because of a tragedy in our past. It is also an occasion to bring the men and women who work for public safety before God’s altar to be blessed by the grateful prayers of those in attendance.

September 11, 2001 I was in Louisville, Kentucky. That evening I was to deliver the annual Dolle Lecture at St Meinrad Seminary across the river in Indiana. It is a lecture series focused on the expression of Christianity in Religious Art and Church Architecture. I had spent the night with a priest friend who was going to drive me over to the Seminary later in the day. He shouted up the steps of the house for me to come down immediately, and I came down to find him staring in disbelief at the first images of the terrorist attack in New York City followed by reports and images of the attack on the Pentagon. About noon as we sat there losing all track of time a call came from the seminary asking if I felt like continuing with the lecture. I have no idea how I responded, but the people responsible for the lecture felt that by evening the students would need something different to think about and a reason to get away from the television. I gave the lecture about how art and architecture reveal something of our faith with images of those buildings coming down wondering what that image would reveal about our faith. We all know where we were when things like this happen.

In 1995 I had just come into the back door of the Rectory at the Cathedral of Oklahoma City after checking to make sure that my associate had remembered to celebrate the 9:00 am Mass. I took two steps into the hall when the house shook from a very loud explosion. Staff members in the front of the house began to shout and we ran into the parking lot to see what had happened. With a rising cloud of smoke coming from the skyline of downtown three miles away, we ran to a television in the kitchen already showing the scene because the morning traffic helicopters were still in the area. Immediately I got in my car and headed to the University Medical Center sure that help would be needed. It was. Only in the late afternoon did we have any idea what had happened. Shortly after noon, the Police moved the emergency room personnel downtown to a triage center and me with them. I stood on a street corner for the rest of the day praying and blessing rescue workers and anointing the injured and the bodies of the dead as they were carried past. Police and Fire personnel would stop and ask for a blessing.

Like the disciples who witnessed the tragic death of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, we all stumbled through those days in numbed silence, but always inside there was a question. For a long time on that street corner in 1995 I stood and wondered, “Why?” “Why here?  Why today? Why would anyone do this? Why did this happen?” Questions always reveal something about the one who asks. Every question reveals our biases, our notions of truth, our convictions about what is important, and the first thing revealed is that we do not know everything in spite of the fact that we often wish we did and sometimes act as though we do.  One of the remarkable things that happened to us all that day was that we reached out for others and did not want to be alone like those disciples who together reached out to a stranger walking along with them.  We tell their story today because it is our story as well. Stunned and heartbroken disciples sit down in sad fellowship to find in their midst this companion who touches their pain, opens their eyes, and restores their hope. The victim of violence is victorious, and death does not have the last word. Hatred does not prevail nor overcome goodness.

No time is acceptable for tragedy. No place should be a home for violence. No living heart has room for hatred. No life can survive anger. Like those disciples we sit down today and beg the Lord, our companion, to stay with us, to heal us by the comfort of his presence, and to keep us from the sin of hatred. There was a miracle on April 19, 1995 repeated again on September 11, 2001. The miracle was that cowardice and hatred were overcome by courage and love. What inhuman evil a handful of wild angry men wrought by their violent acts was completely overwhelmed by the bravery, selflessness, and love shown by thousands of rescue workers and bystanders who did not stand and watch, but dug in and lifted up.

What I learned on the corner of 5^th and Harvey Streets on April 19, 1995 was that the question “Why” was the wrong question. The next day when assigned a spot in the lower level of that collapsed building watching men and women crawl through twisted rebar and slabs of broken concrete searching for people they did not even know was that there was a better question: one that did have an answer. The question to ask in the face of these tragedies we have endured and survived is not, “Why?” The real question has two parts: “What does it mean?” and “What are we going to become because of this?” These are the questions that eventually those men at Emmaus and their friends back in Jerusalem began to ask, and because of this, their shaky and doubtful faith brought them healing and understanding, courage and wisdom: the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

What we remember today must be understood in the context of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our prayer today and every day must be the prayer of Jesus Christ: “Father, Forgive them.” At the same time we must remember also that he taught us to pray: “Deliver us from evil” for the greatest evil of all will be for us to become like the terrorists and bombers who still challenge our faith and seek to dim the Light of Christ that must shine in our hearts. They cannot take this from us or the violence of Calvary will have been for nothing. To that same Holy Spirit who taught and guided the disciples through that first tragedy and challenge to faith we must also pray. “Guide with your wisdom those who care for the injured everywhere, and by your tender love, harden not our hearts.” Amen.

September 6, 2015

Isaiah 35, 4-7 + Psalm 146 + James 2, 1-5 + Mark 7, 31-25

The place is important or Mark would not have given us the detail. Chapter 7 takes place in Tyre which is Gentile territory. Jesus goes there and his presence is a sign that the Reign of God has arrived there as well. Gentiles will not be left out. To make sure that we get the point, Mark repeats the same detail in the healing story we will hear next week.  Someone brings these outsiders, these afflicted gentile people to Jesus in the person of this afflicted man today. By the time Mark’s Gospel is coming together, there are Gentiles members in the community following the way of Jesus Christ.

The details of this story are tender, personal, and intimate. Just as we saw last week emerging from the controversy over clean hands and clean hearts, it is the touch of Jesus that cleanses and purifies, heals, and saves. With great tenderness, Jesus takes this man aside. He removes him from the gaze of cold curious spectators and those who would just watch and stare. He respects this afflicted gentile, and with this action of going to a private place, the two of them have a moment of intimacy. That man comes to know Jesus in a personal way, and Jesus looks upon that man with compassion and tenderness to the point that the Gospel says he “sighed.” I believe  that this “sigh” is something that wells up in Jesus with great sadness and pain because this man has been so excluded from those who could celebrate and share the Good News of God’s Reign which has begun with the presence of Jesus. In the privacy of that moment and the depth of that relationship, Jesus touches him.

Those who would be followers of Jesus know well that the behavior of Jesus guides our behavior as much as his words. We find a powerful and unmistakable lesson here. The sick, the old, the helpless, the poor, the immigrant, anyone whose condition or affliction in life keeps them from being able to live in and celebrate the Reign of God is received with tenderness and respect. They are not nameless numbers, statistics who have no identity and deserve no respect. Their presence among us should move us deeply to sigh in sadness at their affliction and move us to action as it did Jesus Christ. For they too, says this Gospel, deserve the touch of Jesus Christ and the healing comfort of recognition, respect, and tenderness.

This Gospel speaks to us about Charity, about how it is to be lived and experienced both by the giver and the receiver.“Humbly welcome the word that has taken root in you with its power to save you. Act on this word.” says St James in today’s Epistle. As believers of the word, we must live and act with magnanimity of heart to see and value other people as God sees and values them. Nothing else will do. There is no partiality with God. If there is, we should be afraid. Anyone who claims to be a believer must reject all partiality. In a society where designer labels on a person’s apparel seem to speak more loudly than the character of the ones who wear them, this Gospel speaks clearly, and James insists that this is to “judge with evil designs.”

This story told after hearing the Prophet Isaiah makes it perfectly clear that we are now living in the final days, in the Reign of God. The vision of the Prophet has been realized, and we are not only the recipients of that Good News experiencing the tender mercy of God through our relationship with Jesus Christ, we are also the ministers of that same mercy, and the ones who must reveal this good news both by what we say and by what we do.

August 30, 2015  St Peter the Apostle Church — Naples, FL

Deut 4, 1-2, 6-8 + Psalm 15 + James 1, 17-18, 21b-22, 27 + Mark 7, 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

There is a ten year old and a seven year old living in the home of my older niece and her husband. I have begun to look upon that house as a “House of Formation”: not “formation” in a religious sense, but rather in the sense of “formation” for civilization. In contrast to most religious houses of formation, this one is very noisy. If sounds are not coming from an iPhone or an Xbox, they come from one or the other victim of violence inflicted by the one who is on top at the moment. There are certain antiphons that one can hear in that house quite frequently, much like the antiphons in church. One of the frequently repeated antiphons is: “Did you wash your hands?” I think it might be part of Psalm 26 in which King David says: “I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O Lord” because usually this antiphon is spoken just as they gather at the dinner table.

This family ritual comes to mind as Jesus and his disciples confront the Pharisees who are all put out because someone forgot to wash their hands. I find it curious that these critics are busy watching who is washing and who is not. Was there nothing else to do in their lives? None the less, as the incident occurs and Jesus speaks, the issue of purity or cleanliness is raised, but it is not so much about the washing as it is about rules in general. It does not take a lot of attention to get the impression that Jesus of Nazareth was not particularly scrupulous about following the rules of his time. To give him the benefit of the doubt, we could say that while he was a rule breaker, he was also a rule maker. He hung out with tax collectors and sinners. He touched sick people and the dead. He walked with Samaritans and women, and he was seen in the house of  Romans. This is not rule keeping. So, when the Pharisees have had enough, they start a confrontation, and they get one. They want to talk about clean hands. Jesus wants to talk about a clean heart. So when it comes to a question of how you get clean, Jesus does not answer the question, but anyone watching him knows the answer. The Pharisees think that one is cleansed by hand washing. What we learn from the Gospel’s description of Jesus is that one is made clean not by what we do for ourselves, washing; but by what Jesus does, touching. The unclean in the Gospel are cleansed by the touch of Jesus. Without that experience, without being in the presence of and without being touched by Jesus one remains unclean no matter how much or how often they may wash their hands.

Now, as always, this Gospel has two levels. When considered at the first level, in the very immediate time of Jesus the story concerns this question of which is better, clean hands or clean hearts as Jesus challenges the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and a religion of rules as they teach it. Keep the rules and all will be well no matter what you are thinking or feeling.

At a second level comes Mark’s purpose of including this story, and what it says to and about the early church. At this level it is something different because the community Mark is writing to is struggling with the integration of Jewish and Gentile customs and cultures. So the incident and conversation with the Pharisees is remembered and retold to get the Jewish followers of Jesus to lighten up on the Gentiles, and to open themselves up to the possibility that things change, and rules change, especially rules that are not God-given. It is like the experience we have had with changing the rules about compulsory abstinence from meat on Friday as just one example. Rules that we make can change, and sometimes for the good of the whole church they should change.

Then there comes the third level of this Gospel after considering what Jesus was doing and saying, then what Mark was doing and saying, we must ask ourselves what’s the point of telling this story again today? I think both levels can answer that question. We can follow all the rules, and we can keep all the commandments, go to Mass at least once a week, fast and abstain, and do everything else we think we must do; but if Jesus Christ has not entered and touched our lives to challenge our thinking and guide our behavior, we are not clean. At the same time, the second level is still important, because we are living at a time when things are changing, and no one is making that more obvious than the Pope himself who is saying  and asking things of us that are very different from the old ways. Our response to all of this must be like the response of the Jewish people to Mark’s formation as they made room for and welcomed those who were different.

I would remind you that in Greek drama, the chorus and the actors were called: hypocrites which was the word Greek word for “mask.” There was a sad mask for tragedies and a smiling mask for comedies. Jesus insists that we take off our masks, and come to stand pure and innocent in his presence, for only in his presence and by his touch will we ever be made clean.

August 23, 2015  St Peter the Apostle Church — Naples, FL

Joshua 24, 1-2, 15-18 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5, 21-32 + John 6, 60-69

Now we come to fifth and final Sunday with John’s Gospel that has been like a mid summer break from the Gospel of Mark. Personally, I regret that I was not here at St Peter to reflect on all these readings with you week by week because this chapter six is such a rich treasure for us as a Eucharistic Church, and the reflection and the discovery of what is revealed is so much more intense when it is shared together in the context of a Eucharistic Liturgy. These are the final verses of John’s great presentation on the Bread of Life leading us to understand that Jesus is not talking about a material food substance made from flour and water. It is “Real” food. It is the “True Bread” that is given to us meaning it is authentic. Because it is real rather than fake or artificial, it is the only thing that will satisfy our deepest hungers. We cannot live on bread alone – there is more we need, and Jesus will satisfy that hunger with His his Body and Blood.

Yet, John insists that what he gives us is not a “thing” or an “object”, but a relationship, the very real person of Christ himself which draws us into that precious and life-giving relationship Jesus shares with his Father. Through, with, and in Christ, we take on and engage the teaching, the words, and the deeds of Jesus Christ. This is what we consume in Eucharist, the whole teaching, life, passion, and death of Jesus. We enter a whole new way of living that transforms our relationship with Christ, with the Father, and with one another. This is a personal experience, as personal and intimate as falling in love.

As John tells it, the words of Jesus and his intention is beginning to sink in for those people who have been chasing him around for more free food after his feeding of the multitude. They want another show, another “sign”, another demonstration. They like the entertainment and the excitement. They want nothing of the message and the meaning of the sign, and so when confronted with the meaning they murmur like the Israelites did in the desert, and then wander away.

Many of us know how it feels to stand there with Jesus and watch them wander away, walking away from a life of faith. We go out to dinner with long time friends whose companionship means much to us, and we find ourselves realizing that most of them do not go to church anymore. We have family gatherings for Christmas, anniversaries, and holidays where the reality and experiences of faith never enter the conversation. This experience of so many around us no longer practicing any form of faith, just as it had to be for those first disciples, is a real test of faith for us. Why do we, why should we continue to go to Mass?

Sisters and Brothers, the reason is that we have found here and have embraced here a real, a true, and a life-giving relationship. We have found faith and the assurance of faith. What makes faith reliable, does not concern what is believed, but rather it concerns the trustworthiness of the one who is believed. To sustain our faith, we must hold on to the person of Jesus Christ. This, I believe, is what happened to those who walked away and still walk away. They do not make a distinction between a what and who. Maybe they have never experienced or met the who. Those who walked away from Christ betray or refuse a relationship.

So it is with our faith based on our encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. It is in this encounter and relationship with God in Jesus Christ that we receive the assurance of faith. “I invite all Christians everywhere” said Pope Francis at the beginning of his ministry, “to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ.” This relationship with Jesus Christ experiencing his teaching as beautiful, life giving, and healing is essential if we are not to become one of the drifting crowd who simply takes up life as if Jesus did not exist.

What he offers us here is eternal life, but not in the sense of the next life or some far-off, distant world, but in the sense of life that is authentic, true, and ultimate. This is a life that has meaning, has purpose, and is truly divine. When we possess this kind of “eternal life”, there will be no more need to talk about the dignity or the value of human life because all human life will be respected and treasured. There will be no more violence, no more abortion, no more execution, no more hunger, no more unwanted life, and no more inhuman poverty. The life encountered in Jesus Christ is nothing less than divine life, which is from all eternity a life of communion in love between the Father and the Son. If you want that, come forward in a few minutes. But if you want that, you can’t just take communion and run. You have to step into the relationship that is Communion.

The Eucharist is our weekly call to intimate encounter with Jesus Christ.

The Eucharist invites us to open ourselves to the person of Jesus Christ who teaches us in Word and offers his life to us in Communion, in sacrament.

The Eucharist becomes a call to faith and the personal renewal of our faith in Jesus Christ, whom “we have to believe/ and are convinced” is “the Holy One of God.”

August 16, 2015

Proverbs 9, 1-6 + Psalm 34 + Ephesians 5, 15-20 + John 6, 51-58

This is now the fourth of five Sundays spent with the “Bread of Life” discourse brought together for us by St John. We have been coaxed and prodded by John to look beyond the bread – to see more than a substance of wheat and water, to grow deeper into the wonder and mystery of this gift to see that we are called into communion, into a relationship with the Father and with each other through, with, and in Christ. It is a relationship that gives life, hope, and joy. We have been teased by these verses to explore the Word of God, the Word Made Flesh, as food just like the bread; and to realize then that to enter into Communion through the Bread of Life we enter as well into the Word making the word spoken and the deeds done by Jesus Christ our own. Now with these seven verses today comes the invitation to enter into the very life of God, for what Jesus has he offers us: an eternal relationship of love with the living Father. This relationship is what feeding on Jesus is all about. To truly feed on Christ means to dwell deeply with him in a relationship that savors friendship and communion.

As most of you know, I take great pleasure and enjoy any amount of time spent in France, particularly in Paris where I have developed some very dear friendships always celebrated and enjoyed around a table. In a book called: “The Greater Journey” David McCullough describes the lives of many American artists, writers, doctors, inventors and politicians who set off across the Atlantic to live and learn in Paris during the course of the 19th century. In describing the adventures of these outstanding people, McCullough offers a wonderful glimpse into Parisian culture. Early in the book he describes the French love for eating. He reports what I have experienced time and time again. They take nearly every meal in public, even breakfast. and while eating they show no hurry or impatience. Service is slow, but gracious. It is as if they had nothing else to do but sit and chat, talking and savoring what to many Americans seems like very small portions. James Fenimore Cooper once wrote about his experience there saying: “A dinner here in Paris does not oppress one. The wine neither intoxicates nor heats, and the frame of mind and body, in which one is left, is precisely that best suited to intellectual and social pleasures.”

A meal in that culture is not a refueling operation to be accomplished as quickly as possible in order to get on with something else. The hunger being fed is not for physical food but for the nourishment of the soul. Meals must reach us at a deeper level of human need, and this is what John is teasing us with in these verses today. Food and drink can become the place of encounter for family, for friends, lovers, and acquaintances. Think of it in terms of a grand meal. Multiple courses and an abundance of wine that is sipped slowly allowing the time and space to savor others in conversation, laughter, tears, and even sometimes sitting in silence. These unhurried dinners provide a chance to share one’s life and listen with respect to the daily events of another’s life.

Thinking along these lines has led me to begin to wonder if this is not how we Catholics arrived at the point of seeing the Eucharist as something more than a liturgical celebration and discovering and savoring the Eucharist in adoration. Somehow when the Liturgy of the Eucharist really draws us into the act of love in which Jesus offers himself to the Father there is a desire to do more than “eat and run”. There is a need and a deep desire to savor, to linger over, cherish and worship this presence in peaceful silence. I feel this so strongly that it leads me to wonder if people who do not share that desire have just been going through the motions of the liturgy simply “taking communion” rather than being drawn into the most intimate of relationships with Christ and the Father. This is what John 6 is revealing to us: the wonder of God with us.

“My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” says Jesus. This adjective, “true” is not to be thought of in contrast to false food or false drink. It is an insistence that this flesh and this blood is authentic and dependable. It suggests that this food and drink is reliable in that it will satisfy hungers and thirsts.

So it is time to set the table again and then to approach Jesus Christ in the Bread of Life ready to consume the whole of Jesus, his teaching, his life, his passion and his death. This is to enter into a whole new way of living no longer with our own little private lives, but living in the life of Christ changing and transforming us into his very self. This is a startling and completely amazing idea, but it is exactly the idea formed in the mind of God at the moment of creation. Now all is restored. Here the first plan for our relationship with God begins again, and paradise is at hand, heaven is it’s best description which Jesus called: The Kingdom of God.

Retreat Homily Sisters of Saint Francis and the Martyr St George Convent in Alton, IL

John 6, 41-51

What we know of the world comes to us primarily through vision. Our eyes, however, are sensitive only to that segment of the spectrum located between red and violet; the remaining 95 percent of all existing light consisting of cosmic, infrared, ultraviolet, gammas, and x-rays we cannot see. In other words, we only perceive 5 percent of the real world. You may find this little bit of science a bit odd when used to introduce these ten verses from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, but to me, it opens up the whole issue and touches the heart of this initial conflict and what Jesus says in response.

John tells us that the crowd is murmuring. They look at Jesus and all they can see is another man, one of their neighbors, the son of that carpenter, Joseph. To them there is nothing special. In fact, I think in their jealousy they do not want to see anything special. You can hear it in the comments. They think they know who he is and where he came from. Jesus challenges their little small and made-up minds, and his challenge touches on something wonderful about the gift of faith. In our secularized world, some think that faith makes people narrow, rigid and small minded. On the contrary, to those who really have faith, it expands vision and allows the faithful to see what others cannot see. Non-believers look at the Eucharist and they all they see is bread and common wine. They think they know what it is and where it came from. In the prayer of the Eucharist they see a long and boring ritual routine that is perhaps curious, but hardly profound. With faith however we see something dramatically different. We see a gift that mediates the presence of Jesus Christ who fills our lives with the deepest meaning and with purpose. What we see in the ritual is an exchange of gifts: the offering of the life of Jesus to the Father, and the offering of the Father’s Son to us. There is nothing here to murmur about. It ought to leave us silent and in awe.

People who eat along, people like me, and perhaps on occasion some of you know that no matter how delightful, rich in taste, and well prepared a meal can be, eating alone is not very pleasant. It might be just now and then, but eating alone usually ends up being a rather quick experience sometimes seasoned with a bit of loneliness. People who have lost a life-long spouse often tell me how difficult meal time is for them.

The truth is, meals are not simply about food, and people do not live on bread alone. Wonderful food and good drink are really meant to be the occasion for a much deeper, more personal nourishment. Beyond the nourishment of body, meals nourish the soul on conversation, friendship, laugher, shared life and love.

The connection between food and companionship is built into our humanity. There is more to eating than the food, more than nourishment for the body. Eating is also about relationship, nourishment of the soul. Consuming is always about communion: communion with what you eat and with whom you eat.

A meal like that always includes conversation, words spoken and shared. We listen to each other and we respond. We speak and we are spoken to with words of kindness, gratitude, and affection. This is our Eucharist. The Word we share, the Word made flesh, draws us into relationship and communion. To simply eat and drink while ignoring what the others at the table are saying, and there is no communion and no relationship. When there is tension around the table, the food is spoiled.

Important verbs sum it all up from these ten verses: Teach, Listen, Learn. So today we are drawn by the Father to Jesus Christ his son, and we are taught by God, so as to live in communion with God for all eternity. Let us get up and eat Sisters, or the journey will be too long for us.