Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 26, 2017

Isaiah 49, 14-15 + Psalm 62 + 1 Corinthians 4, 1-5 + Matthew 6, 24-34

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

The times in which we live provide more than enough reason to worry and be anxious. Fear is being used by too many to manipulate and manage our thinking and our options. It is a handy weapon to silence opposition and easily leads to abuses of power. History is full of examples. To these times and to all our fears and worry speaks this Gospel. Worry threatens us all. It is a part of daily life; but this Gospel suggests that for people of faith it will not control our daily lives. There are some worries not caused by external circumstances either, but rather by an internal disposition. I’m not one of them, but I know many who are worriers and are perpetually anxious. My mother was one of them, but as she grew older, I watched her get over it, as she grew more grateful for all the blessings and joys in her life.

It seems to me that anxious people and those who worry are not thankful enough for the good things that happen to them, and they spend way too much time thinking about what might happen that is not so good. I read a survey recently that reports that the most common worry people have is about money, 45%. Then 39% of people surveyed worry about people, 32% about their health, 20% about exams, and 15% worry about their job security. Now, we know that worry is not only useless, but that it is positively injurious to one’s health. Going through life without any worry or fear would probably suggest that one has not really lived very much; but reducing the power that worry has over us is possible, and Jesus speaks about that today.

Concentrate on what is essential is what Jesus proposes for his faithful, which is doing the Will of God. There is no suggestion anywhere in revelation that it is God’s will for us to be fearful or worry. In fact, the first words spoken aloud in the New Testament are: FEAR NOT, and they are spoken over and over again. Worry is out of the question when pleasing God and trust in God are the dominant elements in one’s life. It’s a matter of living one day at a time. Worry robs us of the pleasure of enjoying this day and this moment. It keeps us from a full and joyful life. Worry about an unknown future and things that may never happen spoils the moment when all is well because God is good.

The essence of faith is knowing that life is full of risk, but we are not helpless victims because we are God’s children. The essence of faith is knowing that things are always uncertain and fragile, they come and they go, but God provides what we need even if sometimes not what we want. The essence of faith provides the courage to live with grateful joy in an uncertain world amid things and people who will pass away.

The prayer which Jesus taught us is a good one for those who worry, and a reminder for those who don’t. It urges us to ask for “our daily bread” not tomorrow’s or next week’s. It the prayer of people who live in the present with confidence in the one called, “Father.” What we must learn to do says St Augustine: is leave the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time February 19, 2017

Leviticus 19, 1-2, 17-18 + Psalm 103 – 1 Corinthians 3, 16-23 + Matthew 5, 38-48

St William Churches in Naples, FL

The examples Jesus uses today can preach this Gospel if we understand them correctly from the time and the culture in which they were spoken. If we fail to do that, we end up with some rather odd behavior that will not get make us holy or get us close to perfection. When it says “offer no resistance to injury” Jesus is not saying lay down and let anyone hurt you or take advantage of you. Jesus was never passive in the face of evil or wrong-doing. A better translation says: “Do not react with hostility to one who is evil.” That is an entirely different thing from not resisting evil. So, the challenge is how to resist evil, and then comes some examples.

Striking someone on the right cheek does not mean being hit with a fist or a club. The detail of the right cheek speaks to a specific kind of behavior. It refers to a backhanded slap with the right hand which is intended to demean not physically injure. This is a put down or a power play. So, getting into a fist fight misses the point. Rather than hit, the turning of the other cheek changes the game, and it says, “Hit me with integrity and then we’ll see who is best man here.” The people who heard this example from Jesus would have been quite surprised imagining a browbeaten servant standing up like that to an arrogant overlord. The point is made by the response. A servant doesn’t take the insult, but the servant does not escalate this into violence. They simply show up or reveal the arrogance of the offender.

It’s the same thing with the extra mile. A Roman soldier could force a local to carry his pack for only one mile. No more. The offer to go a second mile robbed the bully of the initiative, and it put him in danger of being reported for going beyond the limit. Imagine the people around Jesus hearing this and laughing at the thought of a Roman soldier pleading to get his pack back from a clever pacifist rebel.

With that, Jesus turns our thoughts to hatred, a dangerous thing. It must be kept for a cause not a person. We can hate things or events like war or plagues, but not people. When Jesus talks about the enemy he is not referring to enemies in war. He is talking about someone who is close to us, in the neighborhood, at work, in the family; someone making life difficult for us. Our enemies are not those who hate us but rather those whom we hate. Hate poisons the heart, but love purifies it. When Jesus says that we must love our enemies, it is not for the sake of the enemies. It is for our own sake because love is more beautiful than hate. Love is the greatest gift, but hatred is the one thing that can destroy love.

Love your enemies is one of the most revolutionary things ever said. All other revolutionaries said that the enemy must be destroyed, and we can see where that has taken us into an endless cycle of destruction and hatred that most of the time does more harm to us. Most of us find it hard enough to love our friends, and all of us have some enemies, or at least people we dislike, and when we take the time to reflect upon why we dislike them most of the time it is not because they said or did something to offend, but because they bring out the worst in us. Enemies expose a side of us which we usually manage to keep hidden from our friends, a dark side of our nature which we would rather not know about. The enemy stirs up ugly things inside us, and that’s the real reason we feel hatred.

What is expected of us is not to “feel” love for an enemy, because love is not a feeling. It is an act of the will. We can make a decision to love someone even though we do not have feelings for that person. Love allows someone to be different, to be themselves, and not try to turn them into a copy of ourselves so that we can love them – which is a very distorted kind of fake love. In the end, what Jesus asks is contrary to human nature, but it is not contrary to the divine nature, and so this is what draws us near to perfection. The perfection Jesus speaks of is the perfection of love. God loves God’s children unconditionally not because they are good, but because God is good. And so, it would be for us who seek to perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect. We love others not because they are good, but because we will and we choose to be good.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 12, 2017

Sirach 15, 15-20 + Psalm 119 + 1 Corinthians 2, 6-10 + Matthew 5, 17-37

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

I believe it is true for all of us here willing to look back on our lives with some honesty and humor recognizing that when it came to rules and laws we pushed boundaries. I can remember a confrontation with my father over my first car which he did not want me to have. I suffered many depravations until I had saved enough money to buy the most ridiculous old jollibee which he then forbad me to park in the driveway because it leaked more oil than it burned gasoline. The imposed rule was that I could only drive it to school and back, no cruising on Sixteenth Street, and no passengers. So, when I passed him going about forty-five in a 30mph zone on Sixteenth Street with eight of my classmates in the car, there was a problem. I considered the rules an infringement on my freedom and a public declaration that I was irresponsible and a danger to others. Then when I moved on to the seminary and discovered a community of rules and laws beyond count, there was then an even greater struggle over limitations, boundaries, interpretations, and the fine points of language. We had to wear cassocks if we ever stepped out of our rooms. The rule didn’t say what you had to wear under the cassock, and in the opening weeks of the school year it was hot in those things. The monks didn’t take kindly to bare legs showing when we walked in the wind or genuflected in chapel. What I now see about those days is that I was determined to get away with all I could. My father and I had no common values then. While I wanted absolute freedom to do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. He wanted me to be safe and live long enough to perhaps suffer a son like the one he had! Those monks had a value of respect and devotion with a sensitivity to gentlemanly behavior. We just wanted to see how much we could get away with. Conformity, unity, and mutual respect were a long way from the minds of 20 year olds.

We ought not pretend that we have all grown up and gotten over it. There isn’t anyone in here who does not keep an eye out of police cars, or drive just about 78 mph on Alligator Alley when the sign says 70, or push on that accelerator when the light turns yellow. We hire professionals to find loopholes, and admire people who don’t exactly cheat on their taxes, but cut every corner and find every conceivable way to pay the least. No matter what the issue or situation, that urge to have our freedom to do what we want is always there. Our attitude toward any law depends on the reasons we see for it and on our feelings for those who have formulated it. On one level of obedience there is conformity to avoid punishment which is purely egoistic. The only reason to follow the law is to stay out of trouble. When the punishment or risk of being caught is slight, there is no motivation for observing the law. So, the law giver must make sure that the cost of disobedience is great enough to insure compliance. Too many of our young people today get more upset over being caught than they do over the truth that they were disobedient. They spend more time and energy trying to figure out how to not get caught than simply being obedient.

Today’s readings speak about a different appreciation for God’s law, and Jesus speaks about that again today just as he did once before to his apostles. In the Book of Sirach, a collection of Jewish wisdom, it is said that obedience to God’s law leads to genuine quality of life. The law turns out to be more of a revelation than a demand. As the Psalm we just heard says, God’s law offers the pathway to a life full of blessing.  What Jesus proposes is that the law is a guide that shows us the way to a life full of blessing.

Jesus applies this wisdom to everyday relationships of people living in community. And it is just as true today as it was the first time he spoke. Anger which leads us to demean another comes from the same root as Cain’s murder of his brother, and if you remember, that murder happened in the context of making an offering to God. So, if we can’t figure out how to make peace among ourselves, we will start taking one another to court and end up imprisoned by our own system of retribution. When he talks about relationships between the sexes, Jesus avoids judging the picky details and simply demands due reverence for every person made in God’s image. He points out that cultivating lust destroys the heart and it devalues the woman. On the question of divorce, Jesus tells the audience that if you put someone in an impossible situation, you are responsible for what happens. No blame!

Considered in this way, we can see clearly that Jesus never came to abolish the law, but to get to the heart of the matter. Fulfillment of the law is simply a question of love. My father’s concern for me when I was 16 years old had nothing to do with his insurance liabilities. He just loved me and wanted me to live a long, healthy, happy life. It cannot be different with the a God we call, Father.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time February 5, 2017

Isaiah 58, 7-10 + Psalm 112 + 1 Corinthians 2, 1-5 + Matthew 5, 13-16

St Peter Church in Naples, FL – MS Koningsdam

Two weeks ago, when I was preparing for today’s homily, I was sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the lectionary. As often happens to me at this stage of my life, I began to wonder how many times I have prayed, reflected, and preached these four verses that come immediately after the Beatitudes. It’s all part of the great Sermon on the Mount. I was gazing out the window, and when I looked back down at the table my eyes came to rest on the salt shaker. It dawned on me that the salt in that thing was really totally useless unless it was poured out and mixed with something else. It is that mixing together that causes something to happen. As long as it sits there on the table turning into one big lump as it does in humid Florida, it is useless. With that, I got up and finished washing the breakfast dishes grateful for one more insight into the wisdom of the Gospel.

It is so simple, this truth, and the wisdom of Jesus is so clear. As long as we sit around in this church we are not particularly useful when it comes to realizing our vocation and doing whatever it is God asks of us. We have to mix! We have to get out into the neighborhood, into the office, the shop, the club, where ever we are mixing it up with others and making a difference. We do that best and most effectively when we do it together, as church, as disciples, as Catholics. One single grain of salt is nothing when it comes to bringing out flavors or awakening tastes. The effect of the salt comes from many grains together.

Using such powerful symbols as salt and light, Jesus speaks to us about what it means to be Blessed and live in the Reign of God. We Catholics who experience the magnificence of the Easter Vigil can hardly miss the point when he calls us to be light. Remember how that one candle enters the darkened church, and then what happens as its light is shared and spread throughout the church. The warmth, the beauty, and the intimacy of that light is exactly what Jesus calls us to be. One little grain of salt or one little flicker of a candle is fragile and easily lost, but altogether there are some extraordinary possibilities.

This desire of Jesus for us to be salt and light goes deeper than just those simple images. It speaks of the need for our unity as well, and the immeasurable potential that lies before us as church for doing good. Yet we must be more than just “good”. We have to be good for something. Recognizing this ought to give us more than enough reason to remain faithful and stay with the church and with each other. The privatization of religion and the individualism of our culture and our times should find a challenge in these verses.

The most important thing about each of us is our capacity for goodness. We can be a source of light. We have hands that care, eyes that can see, ears that can hear, tongues that can speak, feet that can walk, and above hearts that can love. Unfortunately, through laziness, selfishness, and cowardice, our light can be dimmed, so that we become the shadows of the people we could be. When that laziness, selfishness, and cowardice creeps over us, the presence of others who share our hope and our faith can keep us from losing our way in darkness.

There is an old expression in English that describes a wise old timer as being “salty.” In the Old Testament, salt is frequently used as a symbol of wisdom, and wisdom is often spoken of as a “light in the darkness”. The deeper and more securely we tie our faith to the Sermon on the Mount, the wiser we shall become and brighter will shine the Light of the World, Jesus Christ.

The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

1 January 2018 At Saint Peter Church in Naples, FL

Number 6, 22-27 +Psalm 67 + Galatians 4: 4-7 + Luke 2, 16-21

Today while celebrating a new year, the Church celebrates the oldest of all Marian feasts. It is a feast uniquely appropriate to those of us concerned with new beginnings, with new resolutions, and renewed hopes. The Gospel we proclaim repeats what we heard on Christmas. It is important to remember that in this gospel the shepherds, considered to be the poor outsiders, are the first informed of Christ’s birth, and who first visit the infant. It is the outsider who bears the good news of what the angels have announced, that the Savior has been born. It is an outsider who helps Mary to deeply know her son. In Luke, Mary represents the ideal believer, for she hears the good news and ponders it in her heart, and fully responds to it. Her heart becomes the place of discovering Jesus and who he truly is. Mary’s life and the Church’s life is centered on that process of pondering who that child really is. In contemplating her son, Mary becomes the church reflecting on the Incarnation. This aspect of Mary’s motherhood is important for our new year, continuing this year, our journey of heart toward God.

All reflection calls for response, and Mary’s response to God should not be considered a choice between right and wrong, good or bad, or some sort of ethical or moral decision. Nor should our choices be only that. Mary gives us an example of what our choice as Christians really implies: that every choice we make reveals who we are. It is not simply what we do. In our choices, we act out of our self and reveal who we really are. For us, freedom of choice is not about choosing which film we will go to see, or what we will wear, or what we will own. It is about how we reveal and define ourselves on the journey to God.

Mary’s choice was not right or wrong, it came from who she was and knew herself to be as a daughter of Israel, a child of God. She is blessed of all women, and we are told in the great Blessing of Aaron in the today’s first reading that God will smile upon those he loves and who love him, that his face will shine upon them. And today, this New Year’s Day, we know that the face that smiles upon Mary as she holds him in her arms, presenting Him to His Father in the Temple, is that of her new-born Son Jesus. This is the face we long to see, the face of God made flesh.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time January 29, 2017

Zephaniah 2, 3; 3, 12-13 + Psalm 146 + 1 Corinthians 1, 26-31 + Matthew 5, 1-12

Last Sunday, leading up to this reading today, we heard Jesus insist that his followers “repent.” In my preaching on that text, I was reminded that the word “repent” has been watered down in translation losing the power and the force of “metanoia” which the word Matthew uses in his original text. For most people, “repent” means to feel sorry and maybe try to do better. I do not think Jesus came from the glory of the Father to make us feel sorry. That idea trivializes his life and his death. He came for “metanoia” which means a lot more than feeling sorry and wanting to do better. That Greek word means changing one’s mind, but not like trading one idea for another. It means a complete transformative change of one’s thinking. It also implies a repudiation of the past ways. With that in mind, Matthew leads us to the mountain and unfolds the message of Jesus.

For those who have begun to experience metanoia at the call of Jesus, this transformation becomes crystal clear. For those trapped in an old way of thinking, trapped in the ways of this world, being Blessed sort of means being lucky, or having received a gift. If that is the case, what follows brings conflict  and makes no sense. How is someone lucky who is poor or meek, hungry or in mourning? How can these be blessings they must wonder, and having no answer, they just turn the page and go on unaffected and unchanged. They think it is blessed to be rich because they get what they want. They think that the powerful and aggressive are blessed because they see gentleness as weakness. If you are merciful people will take advantage of you. They want none of that. No metanoia here!

The message of the Gospel and the life and teaching of Jesus Christ turns everything in this world upside down, and it repudiates everything this world believes, values, and holds onto. So, here comes metanoia. Blessing no longer means being lucky or fortunate or favored. According to Jesus Christ being Blessed means being like God. It means being the way God made and intended us and all things to be. That is “Blessed”. Whatever is ungodly is not blessed. For those who will go through the metanoia of faith, everything is different, and the past is over.

Those who are Blessed know their need for God and put their trust in God rather than in material things believing that God will give all that is needed. The Blessed know that what makes you rich is not what you possess, but what kind of person you are.

Those who are Blessed are gentle and kind. They know that weakness is a form of strength knowing that the most important things in life have to be bought with pain and sacrifice. They never confuse happiness with cheap thrills.

Those who are Blessed have values and standards and are prepared to live up to them by doing what is right because that’s what life is about.

Those who are Blessed know mercy and give what they hope to receive. Their greatness lies in their readiness to forgive since they never forget to say, “I’m sorry.”

You can go on with the rest of these beatitudes if you have begun to desire and risk metanoia. These beatitudes are the badges of a disciple of Jesus. They make us rich in the sight of God. They open our minds to a new way of seeing and judging. They give us a whole new set of bearings. A person who lives according to the beatitudes is already living in the Reign of God, and the fact that they are made in God’s image is unmistakable. To see them is to see something of God on this earth. Eternal life will merely be the full blossoming of a life that is already full.

Isaiah 8, 23 – 9, 3 + Psalm 27 + 1 Corinthians 1, 10-13, 7 + Matthew 4, 12-23

January 22, 2017 at St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

            The key to unlocking the message of this text and the discovery of what Jesus is doing and asking lies in that word “repent”, but there is a problem. That English word, “repent” lacks the strength or the power of what Jesus was asking for and expecting. The original word, metanoia carries with it a much greater force than “repent” which can be watered down to simply mean being sorry or correcting one’s ways. Jesus is not asking that. In fact, that almost trivializes his life and his message to think that he became flesh and died just to get us to be sorry for our sins and try to do better. He wants way more than that. He wants metanoia! Without it there can be no Kingdom of Heaven.

What he asks of those men in these verses today he still asks of us, and we need to pay attention to what happens to them, and then measure our response accordingly. When it says that they stopped what they were doing, put down everything, and walk away from what they were doing, it means just that; a complete alteration of what they did and who they were. They might have stayed where they were and hung out with Jesus part time. They might have even become friends with him, but that isn’t what happened for them, and it is not what must happen with us. Jesus was not their “friend”. He became their Lord, and with that choice they experienced metanoia.

What we have here is an invitation to a new kind of existence, a different reality.  Jesus called this the “Reign of God”. Matthew called it the “Kingdom of Heaven”. This is not a place. It is a way of being, a way of feeling, a way of looking at ourselves, at things and at other people. It is a way of life.  The only description we have of this is the very life and work of Jesus. Look at what he did: forgive, heal, reconcile, feed, comfort, and love. In other words, Jesus made things the way they ought to be. An encounter with Jesus was an encounter with the way God desired, willed, and created this life to be in the beginning. The people Jesus met in this way did more than repent. They were totally different because of him, and their lives were never the same.

So, this metanoia is not something you do. It is something accomplished or achieved by being open to it. When the Kingdom of God or the Reign of God is offered by God, there is a decision to be made. That is what we do. We decide to believe what is offered, and we accept Jesus Christ as the Lord, not as a friend, or some prophet, or some healing do-gooder. Jesus is Lord! That is a decision we make based upon what we have seen and heard. We have to decide to believe. This is what we are hearing about in this Gospel today. Those apostles achieved metanoia because when it was offered, they made the most important decision of their lives. They believed what Jesus offered, accepted him as Lord, and left behind everything that looked like a normal life.

This is the greatest obstacle to metanoia. The biggest adversary Jesus faced was not demons or the Romans or the Scribes and Pharisees. It was an attitude of helplessness submission to things the way they were and always had been. It was that nagging belief that nothing ever changes, that heaven might be different, but nothing on this earth will ever change. Sometimes that attitude gets dressed up to look like an odd kind of piety that counsels a virtue of patience and acceptance. That thinking is a greater threat to metanoia than any persecution. In walking away from their boats and their nets, those apostles opened themselves up to what Jesus offered.  Rather than catch food, they were ready to become food, to nourish the hungry by their lives. Rather than stay in one place with one family, they would receive a hundred times more, and why should we think that they left their wives and children behind. It doesn’t really say that. I like to think they brought them along sharing their decision and their vision of life with them.

Each of us must decide that our faith is more than just a nice idea or a theory not yet tried. We must decide that it is more than just a comfort when times are hard. The following of Christ is not a sideline; it is the only thing that makes sense of life which is why so many think so little of life itself. They have not followed the Lord.  The metanoia to which we are called transforms us into everything we could possibly be that is good and is holy. The metanoia to which we are called begins when we choose to be what God made us to be and live the way God made us to live, holy and righteous in His sight, generous and blameless, peacemakers, forgivers, healers, reconcilers, and people of love without hate, anger, jealousy, or selfishness. That is a whole new way of looking at ourselves and of standing before one another. It is the way into and the very definition of the Reign of God.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time January 15, 2017 at St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

Isaiah 49, 3, 5-6 + Psalm 40 + 1 Corinthians 1, 1-3 + John 1, 29-34

In some ways, it can be said the whole of John’s Gospel is an answer to the question, “Who is this Jesus?” The answer comes with a series of signs that begins at a wedding in Cana and concludes at a funeral in Bethany. This is a critical and essential question for every believer. If someone asks, “Who do you believe in?” or “Who is this Jesus you trust and adore?” “Who is this one who has drawn you to this place today?” You need an answer, your answer, not something from a book or something you heard someone else say.

In the verses following today’s text, followers of John the Baptist are intrigued when they first meet Jesus. Jesus sees the question written on their faces, and he turns to them with a question of his own. “What are you looking for?” These are the very first words spoken by Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel. They are words addressed to you and me as well. “What are you looking for?” A famous philosopher (Kant) once wrote that there are three central questions in human existence: What can I believe?  What should I do? And what can I hope for? Jesus Christ knows that these questions are at the heart of anyone wondering whether to follow him. So, his response is: “Come and see.” “Come and listen.” When we do, we will discover what we can believe in, what we can do, what we should do, and what we can hope for.

Today, John’s Gospel gives us answers to two of the questions from the people who actually saw and followed Jesus. The first comes from John the Baptist himself. He points to Jesus and says: “There is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” For those who heard him, there are clear echoes of the Passover. In fact, to make the point even more firmly, John has the death of Jesus occur a day earlier than Matthew, Mark, or Luke. John has Jesus death occur on the night of Passover when Jews would have been remembering their liberation from the slavery of Egypt. This celebrates not just liberation from slavery, but release from sin. So, to the question “Who are you?” comes the answer that Jesus is the Lamb of God who gives his life to bring freedom. To those who might ask Jesus himself comes his own answer, “Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends.”

Going even further, John tells us that if you come and see who Jesus is, there is more than a great hero. He is the Son of God. His love is God’s unconditional love, for you, for me, for every human person including sinners. The evangelist who wrote this Gospel tells us that he is writing that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God so that we might have life in him.

With the season of Christmas now behind us, we move very deliberately toward that day when we shall once again recall the death of the Lamb of God whose birth among us we have just celebrated with such Joy. As we unfold the Message of Matthew’s Gospel next week and for the next six Sundays, we shall be challenged again to confirm what we believe by what we do so that what we do may express what it is we hope for. When that begins to happen within us, there will be no doubt about who we are, why we are here, who it is we believe in and trust, and where we are headed. As we come to see that personally in Jesus Christ we cannot help but be filled with Joy and with Hope. Life, not death is our ultimate destiny, and at this altar where the Lamb of God spills his blood for us, we have the first taste of the eternal banquet to which he leads.

Epiphany of the Lord January 8, 2017

Isaiah 60, 1-6 + Psalm 72 + Ephesians 3, 2-6 + Matthew 2, 1-12

Hidden in this story that is so familiar to us there is a complete summary of the mission of Christ. It is like a preview of things to come. Listen to the final verses of Matthew’s Gospel and you can see what Matthew is giving us here. “When they saw him, they worshiped….. Then Jesus approached and said to them. ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The work of Christ extending salvation to all is previewed by the visit of these foreigners. His mission comes as a challenge to the Jews of his time, and there is resistance and resentment. Their privileged place and their chosen status with its exclusive claim on God confirmed by the Temple and its rites is all finished with the coming of Christ. The all-embracing love of God cannot be reserved or limited to just the Jews, and the journey of these foreigners and their introduction into the story of salvation is the first hint of what is to come: violent resistance. Herod’s murder of the innocents which Matthew records again previews the murder of the innocent Lamb of God. Yet, God’s plan will prevail in spite of that resistance as Joseph leads Christ to safety away from Herod only to return and continue the mission.

All through the Gospel, Jesus knows no boundaries or boarders. Off to Samaria and to Galilee he goes bestowing the healing signs of God’s love on anyone who comes: a Canaanite woman, the Gadarenes, the people of Gennesaret, even a Roman Centurion’s plea is graced with praise as Jesus says: “In no one of Israel have I found such faith.” Then in one final dramatic sign, the Temple veil is torn in two as the work of Jesus is completed. The apostle Paul picks up this mission as we hear it in the reading from Ephesians today: “The Gentiles are co-heirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise of Christ through the Gospel.” What he is describing is God’s vision of the church in which there is no Gentile or Greek, Jew or Roman, man or woman. We are never more church than when we are close to God’s vision and plan. A church that is not inclusive, welcoming, and open armed is not the church established by Christ. Squabbles over language and customs, conversations that speak of “them” and “us” betray a failure to share the vision and the ministry Matthew inaugurates with this story. The real Epiphany of Christ is seen in a church that embraces the world and people who see one another as God sees.

The message of this Gospel comes as a challenge to this world today, and the teaching our church through this Gospel calls into question a kind of patriotism that is exceptionalism. Authentic patriotism is good and honorable because it affirms one’s identity and community; but excessive patriotism that becomes exceptionalism is divisive, and it is at the root of all wars. For one nation or culture to claim it is the best and is the only way drives a wedge between people, stifles understanding, and begins to deny rights and respect to the other. This Gospel proposes a new solidarity and community among God’s children today just as it did for the Jews at the time of Jesu

This solidarity, this community experience is essential to the plan of God. Again and again, when Christ revealed himself to the world, he rarely showed himself to just one person at a time. Think of Christmas night, when the news was announced to shepherds. It was to a group, another kind of community. And then, people from the east, a distant community, another group. This will happen repeatedly. It is the beginning of a pattern. At the Baptism of Jesus there will be a crowd of witnesses. When he preaches, he will speak to the multitudes. At the time of the first sign, the first miracle, it is at a public gathering, a wedding. When he reappears after his resurrection, it is to a roomful of believers. Even on the road to Emmaus, he presents himself not to one person, but to two. This is part of the great message of Christianity. We are meant to receive the good news together, to live it together, to celebrate it and share it with one another.

One simple fact remains which we affirm today. Christianity is not a solitary experience. Thomas Merton put it beautifully: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone. We find it with another.” To this truth let the church say: Amen!

January 1, 2017 Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

Numbers 6, 22-27 + Psalm 67 + Galatians 4, 4-7 + Luke 2, 16-21

St Peter and St William Churches in Naples, FL

There is nothing more tiring to me than being around someone we would call a “know it all.” At the same time, I get very impatient around people who see the world in black and white, and need to have and to know the answer to every question. Their behavior gets positively neurotic if they don’t get answers. They either begin to think that there is something wrong with them, or they get fixated on something and can’t settle down and go on with life not knowing.

All of this is brought to my mind on this feast by the woman who is put before us. It might bother and upset some whose devotion and images of our Blessed Mother would suggest that she was somehow all-knowing in her openness to God’s plan; but I don’t think she was, and I think that the scriptures back me up. The fact that she wondered and pondered what all this meant is important for us. There is an old tradition that suggests that the information Luke has about the birth of Christ and about his mother came from Blessed Mother herself who may have told him what he reports. None the less, when Luke tells us that she “pondered” all these things in her heart, I think he is saying that she did not have it all figured out, and so went on with her life in spite of that fact. To me, this is one of the greatest lessons she teaches us. It is a great gift.

Having a crises of faith over something that happens when you do not know why or wonder if God is really with and for us is the point. She did not know what that angel’s message meant. She did not know what was going on with those Shepherds, and later she did not understand what Simeon was talking about that day they presented the child in the Temple. She just believed in the providence and love of God. She simply trusted that God’s will and God’s plan whatever it was would be best. She kept all these things in her heart Luke tells us. That does not mean she understood and knew what was going to happen next. For her it was a matter of believing that even through events she did not understand God was with her.

Thomas Aquinas said that reason cannot grasp the ways of God, and so if something does not seem reasonable, it does not mean that God is not involved. In fact, trying to impose reason upon God and God’s acts is really nothing more than a power-play since knowledge and understanding often goes with power and control. We do not have to know what God is doing or why things happen. Faith and trust in God allows us to move on and move forward in life with the assurance that even though I do not understand, God does.

This is the first thing we can learn from Mary, the Mother of God. There will be more, but the first lesson this mother teaches is a lesson on trust that springs from faith. Even though we may not understand, and even though we may not be able to explain things that happen, we remain faith-filled and humble before the mighty works of God.

The Greek word that is translated as “ponder” suggests a kind of interior conversation, a dialogue that seeks to comprehend and put pieces together. It seems to me that this is, for most of us, a life-long project during which we acknowledge that God’s ways are not our ways. Mary teaches us to believe as she did that God is in charge of all things, and lack of comprehension does not keep us from life, from faith, and most of all from hope. As we celebrate the mother today, so we also celebrate the Son nothing less than an opportunity to share in divine life which is a mystery that like Mary we must ponder in our hearts.