Genesis 18, 20-32 + Psalm 138 + Colossians 2, 12-14 + Luke 11, 1-13

There is something very intimate at this moment in Luke’s Gospel. The request of the disciples is not a “show me how you do that” sort of request, and the response of Jesus to their request reveals just how intimate and how seriously he takes their request. It also shows us just what mattered to them about this man they have left all things to follow. They never ask him to show them how to cleanse lepers. We never hear them say: “How did he do that?” when the blind are given their sight or there is suddenly food for countless numbers of people who flock to hear him in the desert. But at this point in their journey to Jerusalem they finally go to the heart of their experience. It seems to me that suddenly they know that all those other things that are going on happen because this man knows how to pray, and they want to know that secret.

I’m not absolutely certain, but I don’t think the culture and the society in which these events took place was much like ours when it comes to prayer. There is a prayerful quality about the Jewish people that seems to keep a running conversation going with God all the time so well revealed in the written prayer of this ancient chosen people that we call the Psalms. There is a balance of praise, thanksgiving, petition, intercession for others, and simply awe all woven into the psalms these people sang all day long in the synagogue and probably at work. In that prayer, there is almost always a distance from God, a respect that establishes a relationship between creature and created, Lord and servant, powerful and powerless.

The disciples knew those prayers. They were in the Synagogue all the time. Probably more than once a day. The disciples also have come to realize that there must be something more than those prayers, something more that inspires, strengthens, enables, and encourages their friend and teacher, so they ask.

What he gives them is not a formula of words. If that were the case, I suspect that there would be no difference between the prayer we find in Luke and the prayer we find in Matthew. The formula would have been too important to abbreviate or elaborate. What he gave them was an intimate opportunity to share in the relationship he had with his Father; a relationship that had all the power to enable him to  do the Father’s will bringing forgiveness and healing, joy and peace.

That relationship is established by the first two words, and everything flows from that. OUR FATHER! That’s the prayer. That is the relationship that empowers, heals, brings peace, and relieves every need. But don’t be too quick to jump on that word: “Father.” Notice that the prayer does not begin by saying: “MY FATHER?” In fact there is no singular personal pronoun anywhere in this prayer. Not one of them. There is no “me”, or no “mine” anywhere in the prayer.” It is always “our” and “us”.

The intimacy I find in this prayer is not just a look at the intimate relationship between the Son and the Father that encourages the Son to call “God the Almighty”, “Creator”, “King of the Universe”, and all the titles we find for God in the Psalms a “Father”; there is also the intimacy developing between the Son and the disciples and between the disciples themselves that brings them to say: “Our.”

Think of it for moment. Think about how prayer still has the power to bring us together. All you have to do anywhere in the world when prayer is called for is say those two words, and Christian people everywhere, Christian people of every communion and tradition suddenly are one – sharing through those words the intimate relationship that Jesus came to establish. It’s not about bread, temptation, or forgiveness. It is about unity and the intimacy of fellowship in Christ, through Christ, and with Christ.

Think of it for another moment. When we pray like that, we pray with Christ. It was his prayer. We pray as children of God, one with Christ. When we pray like that, we pray as one people, God’s only people. When we pray like that, we are never alone. Think how often we offer that prayer and how often others must be doing the same hour by hour, minute by minute all over this earth. When we pray as Jesus taught us, we join them in prayer, in praise, in thanksgiving, and in the work of Christ that brings forgiveness and peace. In prayer, we are never alone.

Ave Maria Catholic Church, Parker, CO

Genesis 18,1-10 + Psalm 15 + Colossians 1, 24-2 + Luke 10, 38-42

My second assignment as a priest in 1971 was to a High School in Oklahoma City which, in those days, was owned and for the most operated by the Sisters of Mercy. I was 29 years old with shoulder-length red/blond hair reluctantly assuming the assignment the Bishop had insisted upon over my hesitation as Chaplain to the Sisters and Administrator and Faculty member. There were 38 sisters living in the house at that time. While it was, in retrospect ,an important and formative time of my life, there were times when I felt like Job. I celebrated Mass 7 days a week for 38 Sisters of Mercy. Far too often Luke10, 38 would come up in the lectionary. Preaching this text in a convent with 38 sisters with an age range of 27 to 90 was something to be avoided. There was a Martha and Mary in every pew. I dreaded this text., but in time, even with the help of the Sisters, I’ve gotten a little deeper into it.

The heart of this story is found by turning this scene around. Forget about contrasting Martha and Mary. There is another figure in this story, the guest. Paying attention to the guest is more important than getting into some controversy over Martha’s behavior or Mary’s. Too often used by contemplatives, to justify their spirituality or life-style, we miss something more important.

Disciples of Jesus are always hospitable like both Martha and Mary. I can’t imagine that Jesus would have stopped there had it not been for Martha’s cooking. There is no reason to think that Martha threw down her apron and walked out of the kitchen. The focus for both Mary and Martha is Jesus, the guest. The story becomes then a reminder that we are all perpetual guests of a loving and divine host. As guests, our possessiveness and selfish attitude toward this world’s goods and resources are kept in check. We are guests on this earth, in this creation; guests of the Creator who has welcomed us and provided for us.

Just as at Cana’s wedding feast, the guest suddenly become the host. Those who welcome this divine guest will inevitably discover that the guest always becomes the host. It is Jesus who comes hungry to this home in Bethany, and he ends up feeding those who have welcomed him. He gets invited to a wedding, and he ends up providing the wine. What we learn from Luke’s Gospel today is that this divine guest still feeds us. It is the Word of God that provides nourishment for us, and a life devoted to hearing that word is first of all concerns. That guest on this earth and in this life is still here to feed us and becomes the very food of this Eucharist. The guest who who is welcomed, the guest who coms hungry for us, still feeds us. It’s like that story of the woman at the well. He comes thirsty with no bucket, and ends up providing living water for the woman at that well. She is the one refreshed by his presence and his word.

I think this Gospel proposes that Martha and Mary should be seen as one person – the person who receives Jesus Christ. There is a balance proposed here, between dong and being, and a disciple of Jesus learns the difference. There is a call here: a call to the integration of work and play or of action and prayer. Having just told the story of Mercy in the Good Samaritan parable, Jesus now affirms that discipleship is not all about doing, but also about being; in this case, being hospitable, being good guests, and gracious hosts in the spirit of Abraham and the style of Jesus.

Now what we discover in this chapter of Luke’s Gospel is not just a lesson in hospitality,. The lesson comes not from word, but from example. The stories of Jesus feeding crowds abound in the Gospel. His mandate to apostles: “Feed them yourselves” comes off the page into the face of those who always think someone else will or should take care of the hungry. The response of Jesus to the needs of those who came to him is never just “spiritual”. He raises a dead girl, and tells the parents, “Give her something to eat.” All through the Old Testament, God is the Divine host who feeds and sustains those who wander the wilderness. Once in their promised land, they always remained there as guests  in God’s eyes. Their prayer and their feasts celebrated the Table God had set before them.

In Jesus, Israel’s divine host became incarnate, and the Old Testament quality of hospitality was seen in the images he used for the reign of God as a banquet and in the way he was found at dinners, feasts, and banquets with sinners, Pharisees, and folks like Martha and Mary. While Martha and Mary may seem to be the host, it is, in the end, Jesus who feeds them with his presence and his word. He went there hungry, and ends up feeding them with his presence. With that reminder from Luke’s Gospel, we gather here again and again to be fed by the one who gives us His flesh to eat. We are the guests here fed so that we might feed others so that no one will ever be hungry where disciples of Jesus gather in his name.

Ave Maria Catholic Church Parker, CO

Deuteronomy 30, 10-14 + Psalm 69 + Colossians 1, 15-20 + Luke 10, 25-37

There are many layers to this parable that Jesus uses to test the one who walked up to test him. At the point in the story where Jesus begins the parable, the scholar of the law who is probably some kind of know-it-all thinks he can disgrace this “no-body” from Nazareth with his questions. As the story unfolds, their little sparring match comes out even, at which point, Jesus takes the upper hand and tells this parable which shifts this passage from a dialogue about the law to a very different matter altogether.

The first two people to pass by the injured man have the law on their side. In fact, they do the right thing by passing him by. To have helped him would have run the very real risk of becoming unclean and violating the laws of purity. The law keepers cannot help – they do not help, and they are justified in doing so. I suspect to their credit, they probably went on by muttering something like: “Someone ought to do something.” Isn’t that what we always say when see something wrong and excuse ourselves from doing something about it? “Someone ought to do something!”

So as the story goes on, someone does do something. Someone comes along and does the right thing in spite of having every reason to do nothing. Samaritans were subject to the law just as much as the others, so it isn’t a matter that this Samaritan was not expected to keep the rules and observe the law. What’s remarkable here is that someone does do something when there is every excuse for doing nothing. So this parable can speak a challenge to all of us who hide behind rules and regulations as an excuse for doing nothing, or who keep on insisting that “someone should do something” when we are the ones who should.

Now we are always accustomed to hearing this parable from the point of view of the Samaritan since he has been held up for generations as the hero of the story. The Jews at the time of Jesus who were hearing this parable however could never have identified with the Samaritan, and in spite of his courage and generosity, they would never have focused on him as the point and center of the story. They would have identified with the man in the ditch. The surprise to them, the challenge of this parable is that a stranger, a foreigner, and even an enemy responded to them, and in that culture of reciprocity it meant that the man in the ditch owed something to the enemy!  This is something else to think about; another level of this story.

Hearing this story as if it was a one-time event dulls its edge, and it removes the story from the living word of God. It is a parable that has a shocking twist that ought to shake us up and get us thinking just as much today as it did then. This parable is a provocative invitation to conversion. It’s not about becoming do-gooders. It is about the possibility that enemies might become neighborly to each other, that even someone we dislike or despise might be better than we are when it comes right down to doing the right thing. It is about raising the question not only of who is our neighbor, but who is our enemy and why do we have any? It asks the question of how we expect to be worthy of the kingdom we have enemies to begin with.

The view of this story from the ditch is probably the best way to hear it, and every reason to tell it.

Ave Maria Catholic Church, Parker, CO

Isaiah 66, 10-14 + Psalm 66 + Galatians 6, 14-18 + Luke 10, 1-12, 17-20

About three years ago I went down to Haiti to visit an orphanage that the parish where I served was helping to support. Even though I was only going to stay for five days, I packed very carefully. I knew about the terrain, so I took extra shoes: simple ones for the flight, easy to slip on and slip off through security, and two other pairs for walking on that rocky, dusty terrain. I counted out my meds carefully, taking a few extras in case I dropped any while removing the child-proof caps that only children can open. I packed some energy bars, and then I presented myself to the Oklahoma State Department of Health and spent an enormous amount of money being inoculated for every known bacteria, bug, bite, sting, and virus known to man in the long history of medical science. I felt like a pin cushion but confident that Hepatitis A, B, C, D, E, F & G, Tetanus, Malaria, and Papa Doc’s Revenge, and even the common cold had been conquered. I carried much more than the peace of Luke’s Gospel. In comfort I flew to Port Au Prince arriving at the International Airport, and then after a frightening taxi ride which simply drove me around to the other end of the runway, I boarded a small plane for the short flight over the mountains to the other side of the island. I should have known that an adventure was beginning when I noticed that there was no door to the “flight deck” as some would call it. The pilot simply leaned back and turned to shout directions to us never thanking us for choosing that airline. I suppose it was because we didn’t have a choice. Once the eight of us were on board, the pilot shouted that we were overweight. I was ready to volunteer to walk, but before I could raise my hand, they began to throw luggage off the plane onto the runway. The second piece of luggage to hit the ground was mine. After about six more pieces, the engines started and we flew off to Les Cayes. I had nothing. No shoes, no meds, no shirts, sandals, not even a walking stick. Believe me, there was no chance I was going to move from house to house. When I got to that orphanage, I stayed put. They promised to send my luggage on the next flight, but they failed to tell me that the flights only go to Les Cayes every three days!

So I wonder, who is going to bear witness to the joy and mystery of our redemption: the likes of me, so prone to place my trust in what I can pack and haul around rather than in God? Or will it be a traveler so light and unburdened that all around will be amazed and imagine how wonderful it is to rely on a God who, as today’s Prophet suggests, would carry us in her arms and fondle us in her lap as a mother comforts her child.

In this Year of Faith when all the church is called by our Holy Father to a time of new evangelization, perhaps we might better evangelize the world by our trust, our simplicity, and the light-weight way we travel through this life unburdened by the baggage of anger and revenge, bitterness and grudges we will not surrender. All that stuff really does make us over-weight and it keeps us from being free as God made us: free to trust, free to go where He sends us, and free to carry one another burdens. In the presence of disciples like these, the kingdom draws near.

This kind of life is one of joy, and as the story goes, those who have given it a try return rejoicing. Their joy is not the consequence of what they have done, suggests Jesus to them, but rather the consequence of what they have become: true citizens of the Kingdom whose names are written in heaven. They do not return with some solemn sense of having fulfilled a weighty obligation, some duty they have been assigned. They come back full of joy because they have cooperated with God in lessening the destructiveness of life. I think this joy is the inner energy of handing on the mission, the excitement that comes from sharing something wonderful, life-giving, and unique.

A wise Egyptian poet, musician and artist living in the first half of the 20^th century wrote these words:

I slept and dreamt life was joy.

I awoke and saw life was service.

I acted and behold service was joy.

One of the wonderful things about our faith built upon the Living Word of God is that we can sometimes sit with it and imagine wonderful things. Imagine that Jesus Christ, lover of the earth, was filled with this joy when he smiled and whispered in the ears of the people who would continue his revelation until the end of time, “Your names are written in heaven.”

Because you are here in prayer, in praise, and in thanksgiving; because you have come back to this church after a full week in the world of work, study, and play, you are those people he has sent. The world must be a little better and know Christ a little more because you were there, so be confident that your names are written in heaven.

Saint Mark the Evangelist Church, Norman, OK

1 Kings 19, 15-16, 19-21 + Psalm 16 + Galatians 5, 1, 13-25 + Luke 9, 51-62

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliot

Father Brian Buettner is either at the end or at the beginning. The poet, T.S. Elliot in those a amazing words might propose that it does not make any difference which one we call it as long as it is part of the exploration, the journey that ultimately brings us back to where we started, where as he suggests, we shall know the place for the first time.

Father, you have walked down that aisle many, many times. As a teenager you carried the cross, the candles, the thurable, and more recently I saw you carry the Gospel Book. Now today, you come empty handed as it should be. You have nothing to bring here but yourself; and the church that gathers here needs nothing more than what you bring. You have arrived where you started, and this is the wonderful mystery into which you rose up from the floor of Our Lady’s Cathedral yesterday.

Jesus is on his way to be “taken up”. That is the goal of his life. There is a plan, there is a strategy. His life is no series of unplanned or unexpected events. He knows where he is going, back to where he started, back to the Father. The only way is to Jerusalem, and in Luke’s Gospel, that is exactly where he started when at age 12 he sat in Jerusalem’s Temple with the elders. When Jesus arrives at Jerusalem this time, he will know the place for the first time. Now he will know what lamb will be sacrificed. Now he will know that Passover is not simply an event remembered from the past, but an experience to be lived in obedience to the Father’s will. Now he will know what Elijah’s words to Elisha meant: “Keep on doing what you do or start doing what God has called you to do, but you can’t do both; so make a decision.”

This is the problem with the Samaritans. They decided to keep on doing what they were doing, and there is no point in seeking revenge. They are like you and me, answerable for our own choices, and there is no way to know if it is the final choice. Then Luke gives us those three who unlike the Samaritans want to make a different choice. The uneasy thing about their story is that their choices are not between good and bad. It is a good thing to bury your father. It is a good thing to say farewell to your family when you leave. Those are good things to do; but maybe there is a better choice. We have no idea how they responded to what Jesus says to them. Luke does not tell us, because perhaps, they too are really you and me. Keep on doing what you’re doing. It might be your last chance, or when the choice is not between good and bad but rather between good and better, which one will you chose?

It is then about choices, and this celebration today is about one of them. It is not however a celebration of choice Father Brian is making today and every day of his life except that by sitting before us this morning he reminds us that there are choices for us to make. The choice is not just about vocation, but how one follows Jesus within the vocation that uses the gifts God has given us. Like you and me, that man is making a choice about beginning – the beginning of a life of exploration, an exploration that will take us all to the place where we began, into the loving heart of the Father. Our lives too are not just a series of accidents or unplanned events. For all of us there is a plan a strategy to get us to the place to where we started.

Our calling is to be “taken up”: to be taken up into the glory of God’s presence, back to the paradise, the garden, where in all innocence and in holiness without any barriers or shame we could stand in the presence of our God and enjoy God’s company. The trouble haunting those disciples was that they did not know where they were going. They wanted Jerusalem all right, but they wanted the Jerusalem of power and influence, splendor and glory: the stuff of its past. They wanted a King, but what they got was what they needed, a prophet.

Father Brian, our church still needs prophets but too often it wants kings. It is 45 years since my First Mass of Thanksgiving. This church of ours has changed a lot and will keep on changing; but it still needs prophets. The role and ministry of priest in the New Covenant is an integration of the Old Covenant’s priest and prophet. Sacrifice and Sanctification will be your mission as priest more often by your presence than by your words; but also, and even more often, you must be prophet who can stand in the midst of every tragedy, trial, and misery and point to the presence of God.

You must become as much John the Baptist as you become Jesus Christ among these people of God. You must be able to point and say, there is the Lamb of God in places and in faces where no one else would ever imagine the presence of God. The priest and the prophet announce the truth that God’s love will never go away. The priest and prophet is not a substitute for us. He tells us about ourselves and God. He acts out in his own person with all its human limits the fact that God will never desert any one of us.

The wonder that we celebrate today is that we know someone with the willingness and daring to put himself forward as a vulnerable example of God’s unyielding and undying love. The bread and wine we put before him and over which he prays calls us into the presence of Jesus who loved us beyond death; and no betrayal by family, friends, enemies or self can separate us from the bonds of His Spirit. The goodness of that God has found a voice again, and the voice will be his. Listen and follow. When it’s time to choose, choose the best so that at the end of our exploring, we will arrive at where we started and know the place for the first time.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Zachariah 12, 10-11; 12,1 + Psalm 63 + Galatians 3,26-29 + Luke 9, 18-24

To know what you are looking for you have to know what you need.

The other day I walked into the parish office. I stopped just inside the door, and I stood there trying to remember why I was standing there. I could not remember what I was looking for. So I went back to my office, and the door was locked. My keys were inside. When I realized what I needed, I knew what to look for, keys!

In the Gospel today, Luke raises a question about what the disciples are looking for. From their answer it would appear they were not looking for what they needed. While they may have wanted a Messiah who would restore the past, the power, the influence, presteige, and the glory of Israel past; this was not what they needed. This was not who Jesus was and it was not the will of the Father who provides what we need, not what we want.

The Jewish people at the time were persecuted, powerless, humiliated, and defeated by the power of Roman and its occupying army. What they needed was the presence of God in the midst of their suffering: a presence that would sustain them, comfort and console them; a presence that would assure them that they were not abandoned or alone. Once they acknowledged and embraced their need, they would find what they were looking for.

Not until those apostles suffered the collapse of all their dreams and silly ambitions, not until one of them betrayed the master, not until they experienced doubt, fear, and hopelessness did they find what they were looking for. Hope! Hope is what they needed not some grand all powerful Messiah who would do what they were unwilling and unable to do on their own or sweep down and clear up the mess they were in. Hope is what they found in Jesus Christ. Hope is what they received by the power of the Spirit, and the gifts to complete what was needed to experience the reign of God.

Many in this world are still running all round looking without any sense of what they need. They think they need a better job. They think they need a bigger house. They think they need to look better, drive a better car, or have more friends. In the meantime, they live empty and painful lives hopeless and confused, doubtful and fearful.

Right in the middle of all that is our God who provides what is needed: no escape from trouble and worry, from pain, sickness, suffering, and lonliness. The message coming from Luke today is a message of hope for anyone who needs it. The message is the image of a broken, betrayed, crucified messiah who, rather than sweeping it all away, picks up all the suffering and says: “Let’s go. Pick up your cross and we’ll go forward together. Come after me.”

It is not possible to take up the cross if you do not put something else down. It is not possible to live in the Kingdom of God and the the puny Kingdoms of this earth at the same time. It is not possible find life until you find death. It is not possible to know Christ Jesus until you know and embrace all the suffering of his passion. When you do, then  there is hope that does not disappoint. There is hope that lifts up those bowed down, and dries the tears of those who weep.

When he says: “Deny your self.” he means stop thinking all the time about what you want. Stop thinking that all creation revolves around the “Ego”, ME! Denail of self turns one toward the common good, the good of all. Self denial is a denial of self interest, of self-serving ideas, schemes, and idiologies that alway assume that what is good for me is good for you. No it isn’t. Before we keep on insisting that it is, we might do well to begin to examine the consequences of having our own way and pretending that it is the right way and the only way.

When Jesus looked around, he saw a need for hope. By denying himself, by taking up his cross (which was not in his self interest) he entered finally and completly into the helplessness of the human condition. In that obedient surrender, he gave us life by loosing it. He gave us his place as a child of God, and best of all he gave us hope.

While I did not preach at Saint Mark on this particular Sunday, the contrast Luke offers between two sinners was very profound to me while reflecting upon this Gospel during the week. Two sinners are presented not just the sinful woman, but the sinful Pharisee who sinned not by what he did, but by what he failed to do. As Luke proceeds with the story, only one is forgiven; the one whose love is great. No mention of forgiveness for this Pharisee who has slighted his guest by failing to observe the most common of courtesies. He almost seems to sit in judgement over a sinner who loves while excusing himself. Meanwhile, he does nothing. He neither apologizes nor shows any sign of love. He simply does nothing in the presence of guest who has not been cared for. Plenty to think about here, and more than enough to move us all to greater acts of love and repentance for the times we have both sat in judgement and done nothing in face of something wrong.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

1 Kings 17, 17-24 + Psalm 30 + Galatians 1, 11-19 + Luke 7, 11-17

They are coming out of the villiage and Jesus is going in. They are going in opposite directions. Death meets life; and then what? Don’t you suppose that the death march turned around? Just that image itself tells the story Luke leaves us immediately before disciples of John come asking if Jesus is the one they are waiting for. From just this story, we know the answer.

Funeral processions are not the sort of gathering that would invite or attract anyone. Here in Oklahoma we have an fine old custom of pulling over, or stopping our cars when we come upon a funeral procession; but we don’t turn around and follow it. No one sees a funeral and joins the crowd unless they are part of the grieving family or friends. But it isn’t that way with Jesus. He should have ignored that funeral procession. In fact, he approached it at some risk, becasue he could have been defiled. He was running the risk of becoming unclean, but he is drawn to this woman. He sees her need. She never asks for anything. She never says a word. He is wounded by her pain. It is not the death of the young man that moves Jesus to act, but the plight of this woman who in that time and age just as well be dead herself when as a widow she looses her only son. This is really a funeral procession for two. With no man, she has no home, no identity, no future. We can see through and in this story how culture and society abandons a woman without a man. There is as much social critique here as there is miracle. The miracle and the story unmasks the social condition that turns people into the poor and the vunerable. That is a homily for another day.

Setting aside the awe and wonder of a miracle, we are left with unmistakable evidence of a God who goes after the vulnerable, the sad, the grieving, and helpless. Whether you are a mother whose only child has died, or a family who have lost everything in an Oklahoma spring storm, there is one unmistakable fact: God will be found there. I can’t help but be struck by the two parallel readings today in which the sons are returned to their mothers. It’s as though these children do not belong to death but they belong to the one who gives them life. So it is with us all. We belong not to this world, but to the one who gives us life. The work of Jesus is to lift us up, to call us from death to life, to turn us around and lead us back into the city, the new Jerusalem.

It is just a little over 11 years ago that I stood here for the first time and told you that after speaking with the other priests who had moved that time around, I was convinced that I had won, and I have never doubted it since then. It is not that Saint Mark Parish is better than the Cathedral, or St Thomas More, St Joseph in Union City, Mt St Mary High School or the Old Cathedral, all places I have served in the last 45 years. It is simply that it took me so long to get it right and understand and believe what the priesthood is all about and what it means to be the shepherd who teaches, leads, and sanctifies; who proclaims the Kingdom of God and stands at the sacred altar praying for the people who asssemble with him, giving thanks and glory to the God who calls us his own and reveales himself to us in so many ways. In truth, the parish of Saint Mark owes a lot to those other communities who taught me so much, tollerated and forgave my mistakes and immaturity. Laughed with me and at me, forgave me, and let me learn from their joys and sorrows how to be priest.

One day when riding in the car with my father I told him I thought I would be a priest, he said: “Be a Jesuit.” I said: “Why?” He said to me: “Because they’re the best.” I said, “What if I just become a parish priest and do the best I can.” He just looked at me and kept on driving. We never spoke of it again, but he was the first person in line for communion at the Mass of my Ordination. I had never seen him take communion before.

As some of you know, one moment in Salvatin History, the Annunciation, holds my imagination more than any other. That young woman in Nazareth said “Yes” to God and what she understood was God’s plan and will for her life. Because she said “Yes” we are here today, and this world is full of hope becasue our lives are full of faith. She knew when to say “Yes” and I think she knew when to say “No.” How else could she have been free from sin?

Forty-five years ago, I said, “Yes” and then laid down on the floor in the old church of Saint John the Baptist in Edmond, Oklahoma while the assembly sang the Litany of the Saints. An outrageous April thunderstorm was taking place which my classmates, who were present, considered to be a sign from God. At the end of the litany, Charlie Meiser, the master of ceremonies said: “Rise” just like Jesus said in the Gospel today.

I still want to say “Yes” to God. Forty-five years ago, I had no clue about what was ahead of me, where I would live, what my life would be like, and what was going to happen. I feel the same way right now. I have no clue about what lies ahead, what God wants, or what the rest of my life will be about. In April 1968 I felt as though the seminary had done the best it could to get me ready. I did not have a lot of confidence. I just had lot of hope. Now in June of 2013 I feel as though you have done the best you can to get me ready for whatever is next. I have no more confidence now than I did then, but I have a lot more hope.

Look at these young men and women. For the past 11 years, they and others who could not be here today have made the journey down that aisle with cross, candles, incense, and the Gospel Book. You, young people, are the very heart and the very reason for this parish, for this church, and for my life. You are the very reason for Jesus Christ, His birth, His life, His death and His Resurrection. We are here for one reason: to pass on to you what we have received from those who have gone before us. We want to pass on to you our love for Jesus Christ, His Word, and the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. I want to tell you one more time: don’t you dare betray or abandon what your parents and their parents have given you. It is the best, and leaving it for anything less is foolish. Don’t be going out of the village when Christ is going in. I want you to remember one thing from our time together. Remember that what he said to those apostles he still says to you: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

There are a couple of more weeks for us to gather here before I get some rest and continue deciding when to say “Yes” and when to say “No.” It seems odd to be having this joyful celebration of Thanksgiving when I am still gong to hang around till the end of the month; yet it does give me time and more occasions to say Thank you again and again and again. No matter where any of us are in the months and years to come, let’s keep walking down an aisle somewhere toward an altar where in the mystery of God’s providence we shall always be one in Communion, and for as long as we can, keep remembering one another gratefully and prayerfully.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Genesis 14, 18-20 + Psalm 110 + 1 Corinthians 11, 23-26 + Luke 9, 11-17

They say: “Send them away.”
He says: “Feed them yourselves.”
With that, the great conflict begins: the conflict between; “There’s not enough” and “There’s more than enough.” Where we stand in this conflict will make all the difference when the master comes and calls for an accounting of what we have done with the gifts entrusted to us for awhile.

The resolution of that conflict within us Catholics should not be too difficult if and when we finally deeply understand, believe, and act like the Eucharistic people we have been invited to become. In the plan and wisdom of God revealed for us through Jesus Christ, we are chosen and called into a profound union with Jesus Christ. Through the gift of himself in bread and wine, two things happen because this is communion, not just food. Other food, when eaten, becomes a part of our body and that’s all. We eat a pear and it becomes part of us. That’s all. We do not become a pear. Some may observe that I am beginning to look like one, but I can assure you. It’s not happening!

When we consume the Body and Blood of Christ something more happens. In our usual way of thinking it’s always about us, we like to believe that Christ enters into our flesh and blood and into our being which is all very true; but that is only half of the mystery. Around this altar of the Eucharist, we remember his dying, we celebdrate his life and we enter into the mystery of God’s love. Those eat His flesh and drink His blood are assimilated into Jesus and become a part of him. What is important to understand, accept, and believe, you see, is the reverse of my example with the pear. This is the difference between taking communion and becoming communion. We have been stuck far too long in the idea that communion is something we get, take, or for that matter receive. It is way more than that, and failing to grasp that truth has left us profoundly impoverished, hungry, and helpless. As a consequence this wonderful, beautiful, world that should reflect the face of its creator everywhere looks broken, hungry, sad, and empty even in places where there is more than enough to eat.

We cannot take for granted so profound a union. It is more than Christ in us, we in communion are in Christ. But the fact is, we have become a lot like the Israelites in the desert who grew weary of the manna and quail and started longing for the food they had in Egypt. Having failed to cultivate a hunger in our hearts and souls, a hunger that comes from the need for communion, a hunger prompted by prayer and sacrifice, we settle for pizza and beer, a coke and a hamburger only to be hungry again a few hours later. In the meantime, having failed to enter into communion, an overweight nation is caught in the conflit over sending them away or feedng them.

Sometime in the fifth century the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril, spoke these words in a homily: “Come then let us hasten to the mystical supper. This day Christ receives us as his guests. This day Christ waits upon us….The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is slain…The life-giving chalice is mingled. God the Word incarnate enterains us. Wisdom, who has built herself a house, distributes his body and her bread and gives us his blood as wine to drink. Life bestows itself on mortals as food and drink. You have taseted the fruits of disobedience. Taste now the food of obedience. Eat of me who is life: Eat of life which never ends.”

The whole church this day, with Francis, the Bishop of Rome and successor of Peter, is at prayer at this hour and everytime we assemble around this altar; so that we may become more and more the the very Christ we consume, so that finally having been gathered in communion and grafted onto this vine, no one will be hungry, no one will go away thirsty from this well of divine life, and all creation where ever we are found will in glory reflect the creator whose life is our privilege to share and whose gifts bring the duty to give. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is the Church in Communion from which no one should be sent away.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Proverbs 8, 22-31 + Psalm 8 + Romans 5, 1-5 + John 16, 12-15

God is good! (All the time!) Say that again like you mean it!
Now this has been quite a week to remember. I think today it is important to pick out what it is we want to remember and how we want to remember it because we are a lot like the disciples of Jesus on those days after his death clinging desperately to the shreds of their hope, shaken by the things that have happened and wondering what it all means.

Since this week has been so out of the ordinary, so shall this homily be a bit out of the ordinary because: God is good! (all the time). Pick up your hymnal please and stand up. Open that hymnal to page number XXX. In light of the week we have just passed in central Oklahoma, there is only one response possible from people of faith to the power of this disaster. It is the greater power of faith. (Sing: My life goes on in endless song above earth’s lamentations, I hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging. Since love is Lord if heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing.)

Storms, wind, and rain are a part of life just like diseases and accidents. We live in a world full of dangers and risk, and it is fair and perhaps important to ask where is God in this? You can’t blame God for a tornado if you don’t give God credit for a teacher who shields a child with her own body or a man who crawls under a collapsing wall to pull a stranger to safety. We see the most awesome people and hear stories of selflessness and sacrifice. Then we see looters and theives snatching up the last bits of precious memories from people who now have nothing left. We are a people of dignity and depravity. Times like these bring out the best and the worst of our nature, and the storms of last Sunady and Monday blew away more than roofs and entire homes. They blew away the mask from the nature of human kind.

What we can see, learn, and understand this week is not the power of Mother Nature, but the truth of human nature. When the storms of life blow in, our true nature is revealed. The storms of life, all of them remind us of what is important again. No one who survived last Sunday and Monday has been seen yelling about the loss of their 50” flat screen TV or their golf clubs. We mourn for people who were lost and rejoice for people who are found. That is who we are and what we are as children of God and disciples of God’s Son: a people who can morun for the right reasons and rejoice becasue God is Good!

Something about people huddled in a storm cellar fearful and anxious keeps reminding me of a crowd of people huddled in an upper room fearful and anxious, uncertain about what was happening outside and what the next day was going to be like. But they had been told and they believed that they would be robed in glory and experience power from on high. Confused about what that glory would look like, all they could remember was the sight of the Son of Man dirty, bloody, and broken hanging on a cross. What kind of glory was that? Yet, they held to their hope, remained together, encouraged one another, and clung to the rock of their faith, and somehow, slowly for some and in an instant for others, that broken, bloody, friend who loved them all rose up robed in glory.

His victory is the hope we share. His glory is ours rising above the storms of life. His strength is what we find in our unity as a family in faith. His joy is what we know when we see one another again after one more storm of life fully aware that there will be more storms again, and we shall keep on singing.

This feast of the Holy Trinity is a really good day to remember what we just heard Paul proclaim to the Romans: “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, becasue the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

As John’s Gospel assures us: God will take from Christ what is his and declare it us. With that good news, we can keep on singing because we know and we believe that God is Good. ALL THE TIME!