Saint Mary's Tulsa

Father Kastl's November 28th Homily

2010-12-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

First Sunday of Advent, Year A
November 28, 2010
Review the Readings Here

Over the past few years it seems there has been an ever growing tension between US citizens and the Islamic community. In reality there is an even larger tension in the broader world on how to relate to these men and women who align themselves with the prophet Mohammed. Many of us find it easier to sit back and make crass generalizations about how they live and what they believe. For many people when they hear the word, “Islam” they immediately think of terror and extremist mentalities.

The Catholic Church has been in dialogue with these our brothers and sisters for centuries. There have been extreme moments of tension such as the Crusade, as well as great moments of understanding. Yet the Church strives to promote a spirit of dialogue which must be approached by a holy curiosity about the other and a deep and profound respect for the fundamental human dignity instilled by our same creator God.

You might ask, “Where is this going?” Over the past few months many conversations about Islam have continued to surface. The stories coming out of France where women are banned to wear burqas, stories coming out of New York where there is a controversy on whether a new mosque should be built so close to Ground Zero, stories coming out of the Holy Land about Jewish, Christian and Islamic relations. I have been profoundly shaken by the negative and sometimes blatant hatred many people have for they who deeply believe in the revelations of Mohammad which come to them through the Quran.

Yes, there are indeed certain elements of this world religion that must be challenged and rejected. Yes, we must reject the extremist who acts out in violence in the name of Allah just as much as we must reject Christian extremists who act in the name of Jesus Christ. Yes, we must reject certain tenants which go against the fabric of Christianity which was established by Jesus Christ. But I propose the real issue in all of this is fear. For we often fear what we don’t understand.

Their fidelity to what has been revealed by the prophet Mohammad is indeed admirable. For the centrist and balanced Muslim, their fidelity to their faith and commitment to live it out publicly is indeed an example from which each of us could learn.

On this first Sunday of Advent, on this first Sunday of the new church year, we are presented with beautiful, yet challenging readings about our own fidelity to our Trinitarian God who has revealed himself to us in the form of flesh and blood, in his Son born of a woman, born under the law.

Our first reading from the second chapter of Isaiah can be seen as a message of “Universal Peace through fidelity to the Word of God.” Notice the emphasis I put on Fidelity. My whole point of giving you the example of our Islamic brothers and sisters is to emphasize our own call to be radically faithful, to embrace in an unprecedented way our fidelity to our Trinitarian God and in turn live this faith both proudly and boldly in both private and secular sectors.

The prophet Isaiah continues by saying that it is from this fidelity to the WORD, the Torah, that GOD’S desire for lasting peace can finally be actualized.

Isaiah beautifully proclaims, “In days to come, the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it and many people shall come and say, come let us climb the Lords Mountain. For from Zion shall go forth instruction and the WORD of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

Recall that in the minds of the Israelites, Jerusalem is the holiest of holies because it is there that God resides in a special way. Fidelity to the WORD then leads to salvation… Fidelity to our hope of salvation leads to peace in Jerusalem or better put, leads to lasting peace in our world where WE shall beat our swords into plow shears and our spears into pruning hooks.

In celebration of this fidelity, the psalmist harkens out… “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord” or “Let us go rejoicing up to Jerusalem.”

As faithful Catholics, this simple, yet pithy line from the psalms should be our joyful song each time we load the car and head to Mass… “Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord.” For we believe that the holy of holies is no longer confined to the geographical location of Jerusalem, but rather within each of our Catholic temples throughout the world. In this Church our Lord Jesus, the WORD made flesh resides and reigns as King under the form of bread and wine kept safe in our tabernacle to be worshiped and adored. It is for this reason we gather in a Church each Sunday, in a space set apart, to hear the Word proclaimed and adore and consume the WORD broken and poured out in order to be strengthened in our fidelity to live in hopeful anticipation of life eternal.

Living a life of fidelity to God is difficult today, for it takes many consecutive choices to sacrifice the temporal desires of the flesh for the good of the eternal longings of the spirit that live within us.

St. Paul in his letter to the Romans does not mince words when he exhorts that community of faith. In his use of contrasting images, being awake verses being asleep, night verses day, works of darkness verses armor of light he lets his hearers know. He lets us know that fidelity to the WORD made Flesh cycles through many continuous moments of conversion. As a Christian we should be constantly evaluating and reevaluating our surroundings, our priorities, our friendships and our choices always striving to move away from sin towards Gods bountiful love and grace.

St. Paul lists several prominent issues facing the community which he wanted them to be particularly aware of in order for them to avoid such behaviors in the future. Orgies, drunkenness, promiscuity, lust, rivalry and jealousy.

Thanks be to God these things no longer affect us today. Yah right!

Friends, being a faithful and authentic Catholic entails leaving these among other things behind. I am well aware of the challenges that null away at and dull our fidelity to God. All one has to do is watch the news and listen to the strong secular voices today to know that a very different Gospel is being preached than the one we celebrate in this holy place.

The rate of infidelity is soaring… the number of Catholics who divorce and remarry outside of the Church is staggering, the amount of pornography that is streaming online is overwhelming, the amount of consumption of material goods in this country is sickening. Can you say Black Friday?

These sins that St. Paul spoke of 2000 years ago are still alive and well today and must be rooted out of our lives in order for us to cling more fully to the WORD made flesh, whose birth we prepare to celebrate at the end of this Advent Season.

Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples in our Gospel is a powerful one. “As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.”

My dear friends, during these holy days of Advent, we are encourage to pull our heads out of our gift bags and shrink wrapped packages in order to see the coming of the King of Glory in our midst. What are we willing to do differently in these holy days that have been set apart to heighten our attentiveness, awareness and submission to the WORD? Maybe we will make it a point to go to confession on a regular basis, using this place of grace to let go of pet sins which keep us separated from God and one another, maybe we will make it a point to pray as a family or increase our own relationship with God, maybe we will strive to let go of some past hurts that weigh us down, maybe we will pray about and grapple with a teaching of the Church we find difficult to believe, maybe we will see this Advent Season as a graced time to hit the reset button in our spiritual lives letting the King of Glory in.

My prayer for each of us is that we may let the dynamic WORD we hear proclaimed and the true Body and Blood of Christ we consume spur us on to be a Catholic people of faithful authenticity, truly living out the faith we profess in this place.

Father Kastl's September 5th Homily

2010-09-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

Twenty Thirds Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Father Kastl

Readings

Wisdom 9:13-18

Psalm 90

Phmn 9-10, 12-17

Luke 14:25-33

Do you ever have those reoccurring thoughts that keep coming back to you… thoughts which pervade every aspect of your thinking and are at times annoying… thoughts which at first might seem irrational or crazy yet over time give you clarity and a new perspective…

This happens to me all the time. My most recent non-relenting thought is this… “If I was a Christian in the first century Church, what kind of Christian would I have been?” In other words, if I was one of the twelve or one of the many people we hear Jesus addressing in our Gospel today, where would I have ended up? Would my name be listed among the martyrs or among the lame…

Just think about it…claiming to be a follower of Christ came with serious consequences. Before the legalization of Christianity, being a Christian literally meant choosing your own fate. Would I have been radical and faithful enough to make the choice to follow Christ knowing that I, like Peter, would be crucified upside down, or like numerous other saints who were burned at the stake or still others who were fed to wild beasts at the pleasure of the pagans?

This reoccurring thought has inspired me to examine my choice to be a Christian in 2010 and how this identity affects each decision and choice I make, how it affect my priorities and my actions.

Last month I referred to a conversation I had with a gentleman in Germany about the European perspective of Americans in regards to our freedom of religion. It was the example of the frog being boiled ever so slowly in a pot of water…This man moved from pointing the finger at just the US and included himself and most of the developed world in his second observation.

He said:

The Christians of today are getting fat. Think about it. We gorge ourselves on the fat of food, we gorge ourselves on the fat of academics, we gorge ourselves on the fat of material possessions, we gorge ourselves on the fat of iPods, iPhones and text messages, we gorge ourselves on the fat of all kinds of creature comforts to the point were we no longer have room to digest the main course of the Christian meal, the cross. First comes the choice to follow Christ, second comes the dying of self through obediently accepting what comes our way or rejecting those things which are contrary to him and third comes the joyful fruit of the resurrection. Without the cross, Christianity is nothing but a fat and lazy social club!

As you can imagine, I have thought a lot about what he said.

Over the past few weeks we have been inviting each of you to make a choice at the beginning of this academic year. A choice to become more fully enveloped in the missionary spirit of Jesus Christ by resolving yourselves once again to discern and make decisions that will help you, your families and indeed all of us to become more authentic and welcoming disciples of Jesus Christ.

Our readings on this Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary time are quite challenging in this regard.

In the 9^th chapter of the book of Wisdom we hear about the relationship between God's intention and human understanding:

“Who can know God's counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?” These two rhetorical questions warrant only one answer. “No one perfectly.” With this response, we can then presume it will take effort and commitment to know and be in line with God’s will for us.

If we read on in this ninth chapter we hear:

For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans. For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.

We must be careful with this line of scripture not to breed the heresy that the body is bad and the soul is good and that the two are at odds with each other, rather what Wisdom is commenting on is a shared human reality…The appetites of the body which are not always of God can lead us down paths we wish not to go…as Wisdom said, “The deliberations of mortals are timid and unsure.”

It is in a spirit of humility that we then acknowledge our timid and unsure nature and in faith desire to merge our human thinking with the almighty Divinity of God. We do this through one of the greatest gifts God has given us, the gift of prayer, our relational love language with God where we cry out Abba, Father!

Each year at St. Mary we celebrate our gifts and talents by having an annual Stewardship Renewal. This year our theme is prayer. You may be asking how prayer ties into Stewardship? Isn’t the concept of Stewardship all about doing? Giving of our Time, giving of our Talents, giving of our Treasure? This could be the furthest from the truth. Stewardship is first and foremost about being. Being still and knowing that God is God and from God, from his many gifts, He has lavished upon each of us a unique set of talents and abilities that are to be used, yes for practical application and purpose, but always and everywhere as moments to glorify the Giver, God himself. It is through prayer, in this intimacy with God that we come to know Him and love Him and in turn desire to serve Him wherever we find ourselves in life.

Our second reading from St. Paul to Philemon is a wonderful reminder of the freedom we have in the Christian journey, freedom that God gives us as a gift. This gift sets us apart from all other living beings. God has given us freedom to make the CHOICE to respond to the universal call to holiness, to make the choice to prioritize our lives according to his radical plan for us.

St. Paul referencing his age to remind Philemon of his wisdom, beckons him to receive his escaped slave Onesimus back without penalty:

I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I should have liked to retain him for myself so that he might serve me on my behalf in my imprisonment for the gospel, but I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.

Saint Paul’s hope was that by returning him now laced in human dignity, Philemon might freely choose to honor him as a fellow and equal brother. Pay close attention to the strong emphasis on freedom. “I did not want to do anything without your consent so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.”

This lesson of freedom is at the heart of Jesus' message in the 14^th chapter of Luke’s Gospel. Jesus speaking to the great crowds lets them know what the conditions of discipleship are before he invites them to follow Him. The conditions of discipleship are 1.) Total and unwavering commitment to Jesus Christ, 2.) Acceptance of the Cross and 3.) Detachment from earthly possessions.

This passage from Luke is fascinating for Jesus does not mince words or sugar coat his great commission. He is very clear about what it means to be a disciple and through two examples he invites his listeners to make a choice. He wanted to fully inform them about what they were getting into before they presented themselves for the Christian Way…“Which of you who wish to build a tower does not first sit down to calculate the cost.” Or what king marching into battle would not first decide if ten thousand troops could successfully oppose another king.”

The conditions of discipleship are clear and so if we CHOOSE to follow Him the hard work begins. The work of allowing these conditions to take hold in our lives, conditions that call us to freely submit out wills and thoughts to the mind of Christ and his Church, conditions which call us to freely pick up our crosses both big and small seeing in them the purification of our wills, conditions that call us to detach ourselves from creature comforts in order to cling and trust more fully to God's care. Why? All for the glory and honor of God, all for living lives rooted in the heavenly virtues of charity, lasting happiness and thanksgiving, ultimately all for the salvation of souls.

So if push came to shove and our popularity or friendships or jobs or maybe our very lives were at stake for being a follower of Christ, which side of the line would we be on? On the list of martyrs or on the list of those who walked away?

Father Kastl's July 25th Homily

2010-07-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Fr. Kastl
Readings:
Genesis 18:20-32
Psalm 138
Colossian 2:12-14
Luke 11:1-13

As many of you know I have been gone a lot this summer traveling from Europe to Chicago to Denver and then to Big Sandy Texas. Movement that has enabled me to experience many different cultures, significant rites of passage such as marriages and religious professions, dynamic conference speakers and summer camp with young Catholics alive in their Catholic faith and love of the Lord.

I will spare you all of the details of this marathon summer of spiritual expeditions, but I would like to frame this homily around two particular experiences I had this summer, experiences which have affected me greatly, experiences which I believe can offer flesh and a concrete foundation for the readings we are given this weekend.

Archbishop Chaput while addressing some 850 people from across the world in his keynote address at the National Catholic Bible Conference in Denver, focused his talk on what he termed, “Wasted Grace.” “Wasted Grace” he said are those shadowed areas from our past that we regret, shadowed areas that even at times can still keep us from fully allowing God’s grace and mercy to enter in and take hold in our lives.

From this conference I then traveled to Big Sandy Texas to attend a week of summer camp at The Pines, a Catholic camp for kids ranging in age from 7-17. This year’s theme was all about creating a “Spiritual Revolution” in one’s life.

Over and over again this theme was imparted to the young campers who are the generation in formation who have the responsibility to create a spiritual revolution in their lives and in turn take it out into the midst of our world, a revolution that has the ability to recapture and continue a Christian worldview in our midst.

These two topics, the call to quit wasting God’s grace in order to create a revolution in the life of the Church are clear and evident themes in our readings from scripture this weekend.

First we start with our reading from the 18th chapter of Genesis. Six times Abraham had the audacity to approach and question God, a God who was upset at the “wasted grace” and the “wasted opportunities” of his chosen people to trust and cling to his ways. God said:

The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave, that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.

God’s intention was to wipe out the people and start over again due to their hardness of heart. He was disgusted with their dismissal of the concept of sin, in essence believing there was no such thing at all.

Some say this story is about the loving and gushy forgiveness of God, yet scholars tell us there is a deeper and more important lesson being taught, the lesson about Divine Justice. Divine Justice teaches that if we align ourselves with God we can expect mutual blessings and benefits, yet there are also consequences for not holding up our end of the deal. Divine justices teaches that yes there are indeed blessings that come from our relationship with God, but there are also expectations that we his chosen people must fulfill if we are to live in such as way that draws other people into the mystery of His Divine mercy and love.

Divine justice teaches us that there are boundaries and when we walk outside of those boundaries we call that sin. This reading from Genesis speaks profoundly to the unchanging reality that sin is real, it exists. The reality is that each one of us sins and in turn we must time and again return to God and to one another seeking reconciliation and forgiveness.

Abraham’s dialogue with God also shows us the communal nature of living a life in God. In those times a person’s identity was not just based on their solitary being or their immediate family, it was also associated with their place of living, in this instance Sodom and Gomorrah. In Abraham’s attempt to sway God he implores him by saying, “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? Suppose there were fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty or ten innocent people within it, far be it for you to do such a thing to make the innocent die with the guilty.”

The way in which God responds is both telling and consoling… “If I find fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty or ten innocent people, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

The innocent people God refers to are not people who have never sinned rather they are people who have sinned but recognized it, repented and continued living. By their virtuous act of repentance they spared the whole. Through their acknowledgment of “wasted grace” in their lives they created a revolution, a revolution that saved the guilty, those still caught in sin. So what is God’s point…We as individuals have a responsibility to keep our own house in order and in turn we have a corporate responsibility to save the whole, for to lose some of the whole, would be to lose part of our very own identity.

Some of you may be asking, “How do I know if I am wasting God’s grace?”

In our Gospel from the 11th chapter of Luke we get a very direct and explicit explanation. This Gospel can be split into three parts. First, a lesson on prayer, second a lesson on perseverance in prayer, and third a lesson on the assurance of being heard by God.

In order for us to learn what sin is, in order for us to come to the realization that sin still exists in our world although we at times want to dismiss this as an old and suppressive idea of the Church, in order for us to truly realize our wastefulness of God’s grace, we must devote ourselves to ceaseless prayer.

For some of us, we may trick ourselves into believing that by saying one Hail Mary or one Our Father or one morning or evening prayer a day we are truly praying… although this is a start, true prayer takes time, it takes dedication, it takes sacrifice, it takes a resolve to truly be in union of mind and heart with God, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in that union, a vulnerability that allows God’s all powerful light to shine into and take hold of the darkened and broken areas of our lives.

In our Gospel we are given the great prayer of the Our Father, which not only teaches us about the intimacy God wants with us, a relationship of fatherly love towards his children, it also reminds us of the communal nature of our baptismal call to holiness which we heard about in our second reading. Just listen to the communal language of this prayer. OUR Father, Give US, OUR daily, forgive US as WE trespass against OTHERS, lead US, Deliver US.

He wants us to know Him in and through the other. He wants us steeped in the school of love, for love is the foundational principle of prayer, to know and to be known by God and one another…

Often times we don’t progress in prayer because we don’t “feel” anything. This is a great challenge for us who live in an overly stimulated society. When we don’t feel or experience anything as we do when we turn on the radio or go to the movies or have a conversation with a friend, we get bored or distracted and get up and move on. Or rather maybe there are certain sins in our lives that need to be confessed and removed in order for us to open ourselves up to see that we are worthy of God’s love and presence in our lives…

Just as the man in our Gospel was persistent in getting the loaves of bread, so will our persistence gain us what we ask, if it is according to God’s plan. I sometimes think God withholds his consolation from us in order to test our intention and endurance to see if we are seeking the things of heaven with purity of heart

So much of an authentic prayer life is also rooted in the continued formation of our hearts and minds in the ways of Christ to come to us through Sacred Scripture and Tradition. So many Catholics today have fallen into the secular trap of believing only those things which are convenient and not difficult to believe, rather than submitting their will to the 2000 plus years of Christian Wisdom.

Which do you think is wiser, our little brains and our life experiences of ten, twenty, thirty or maybe ninety years or rather the collective wisdom of the Church which has been under the guidance of the holy spirit for 2000 years…you can guess where I wish to put my trust.

With that said we come to the last section of our Gospel… the lesson on the assurance of being heard by God… “Jesus says, “Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be open to you.”

My dear friends in Christ, each second and moment of our lives, God is unceasingly pouring his loving grace upon us. He is showering us with his wisdom and eternal truth asking only that we be open to it…yet, each second, each moment of our lives we often say no. We resist this grace of mercy and truth. Why? From my own experience of resistance it is because of fear, or pride, or lack of trust. Fear that if I accept it, I will have to make certain changes in my life, changes that are risky even to the point of losing friends or status. Pride because I think I already know enough and know better than the teachings of Christ passed down to us through Sacred Scripture and Tradition. Lack of trust— this is one of my pet sins. A lack of trust that God really does care and have a plan for me.

These my friends are lies of the devil which lead us further away from the font of grace, Jesus Christ, further away from this loving community of faith whose goal and mission is to foster and raise disciples after the heart of Jesus Christ.

So what now? I beg and implore you my friends to daily avail yourself and your families to God’s mercy and grace through consistent and meaningful prayer.

Bring your families to confession. Don’t wait until Advent and Lent rather come monthly or as often as you need. Msgr. Dorney, Fr. Swift and I would love to have to add hours to the confession time in order to accommodate the need. (We are by the way adding a Sunday slot from 9-10AM starting in September.)

We shouldn’t approach confession as a place to beat ourselves up rather we should see it as a place of spiritual renewal and accountability, a place to get back up again, to dispose ourselves to God’s life transforming grace. Then without mortal sin on or souls we approach the most amazing gift of all, that sacrament that sets the Catholic church apart from all other Christians…the gift of the Eucharist, the true Body, the true Blood of Christ, that intimate and loving encounter with our Lord who wants nothing more than to ignite within us the passion and fire of God’s revolutionary love.

Father Kastl's July 4th Homily

2010-07-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Fr. Kastl

After having been unplugged from any sort of world wide news source for a couple of weeks, I launched the CNN website to catch up on the scuttle going on both in our county and abroad… I was taken by one article that appeared under the world news section…
“Italy will fight Wednesday against a European court ruling that crucifixes in classrooms violate students rights to freedom of religion. The European Court of Human Rights found unanimously last November that the display of a particular religious symbol- such as the Christian cross- in a classroom restricted the rights of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions and rights of children to believe or not to believe.”
In reflecting on my adverse feelings to this story, I have come to the conclusion that in many ways, Christians from the United States have often looked to our European brothers and sisters for inspiration on how to live in such a way that faith and the public sphere can be commingled. For centuries Christianity has shaped and formed the life and culture of many European Countries, most especially Italy which is the mother country of Catholicism.

As we all know, in this great country that was founded as one nation, under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all, we have truly struggled as of late to understand the relationship between Church and State.

This calls to pause for a moment and ask a very basic question…What is the sum total of our Nation or State, what is the sum total of Church… In essence, although both are institutions with their own laws and expectations of living, neither of them are anything without the people, for it is the citizens, it is the faithful that make a nation, that make a Church, and if this is the case, explain to me how one can be truly separated from the other especially among those of who claim to belong to Christ first and the world second… for if we are Christians first, than that Cross bearing identity, just like our temperaments and passions should then dictate how we, Catholic Christians come together as a nation. The cross we received at the font of baptism hypothetically becomes the precursor to all we do in the public sphere.

Sounds simple and pretty black and white to me, yet we know, we know too well, within this wonderful land of the brave and the free, of liberty and justice for all, that all of us struggle to make it a reality… We have seen, just as the Italians and other EU countries the slow erosion and taking away of Christian principles and morals from our school systems, court rulings and other public venues. So what is the answer, how do we deal with this difficult situation, this difficult question?

As the Holy Spirit would have it, our readings are very direct in answering this question, especially on this July 4th weekend when we celebrate our Independence Day.

Our first reading from Isaiah 66 speaks beautifully and tenderly of the role of Jerusalem in God's plan of salvation. It is easy for us to be consoled by this reading of motherly comfort that God promises to the Holy City and her inhabitants, yet just as in many scripture readings, there is more than meets the eyes. The Hebrew word for comfort which is being used over and again in this reading, finds its origin in the root word for “repent” or “regret” or “to be sorry.” You could say that God has placed a condition on His comfort that is being channeled through Holy Jerusalem, a conditional comfort that depends on the obedience of His sons and daughters to follow in His way.

If we recall, Jerusalem, the place of the temple, was in the minds of God's chosen people the supreme place of encounter with God, yet in the collective memory of God and his people, they had strayed, they had defiled this Holy of Holies, and so we see God once again saying come back to me, repent, be renewed in the covenant that was established when I brought you out of Egypt… repent and come back to me and in doing so I promise you my comfort. He says, "Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent. As a nursling, you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap, as a mother comforts her child so will I comfort you, in Jerusalem you will find comfort.” Beautiful and hopeful words to a nation that had strayed away from the principles in which she was founded upon…"come back to me, come back to me…"

In essence God is calling them to a life of obedience to the Torah, to the commands received and to the way of life that had been established to authentically live in the world, not of the world, rather as God's chosen people.

So that was then. How does this story affect us, people living in the US in 2010, a time when many people have come to believe they have nothing to repent from, nothing to turn away from, nothing to change from…thinking of the church more as a place to get their Jesus pill, a Holy Spirit shot in the arm once a week, not to interfere or challenge any other way of living in their lives. Some people have asked me, "When is the Church going to let go of her antiquated teachings and expectations in regards to life issues, voting with a Catholic Conscience, birth control, living together before you get married, premarital and other casual sexual activity, preaching against the intrusion of secular influences shaping families, mass attendance on Sunday’s…How can these teachings that no longer seem applicable in an advanced and scientifically acute society still be held up?"

These musings make me think of a statement someone from Europe said to me not long ago. He said, “We have always looked to the States as a herald of a good life… a life rooted in faith in God, yet a life rooted in a solid democracy, but today, many of us see you as a frog unknowingly being boiled in a pot of water. Just like a frog who will not jump out of the water if the heat is turned up slowly to the point of being boiled to death, so it is with your citizens. Things are changing ever so slowly around them, in the government, in their families, in their understanding of faith and morals, they are embracing secular trends and ideas so fast and before long they are going to be boiled. The life, liberty, faith, democracy and justice that they knew and loved… it will be dead.”

Obedience and vigilance to the teachings of Jesus my friends is the antidote to maintaining a holy Jerusalem in our midst.

St. Paul who lived in a time that rejected the full message of Jesus Christ said it well in our second reading from the 6th chapter of Galatians:

“Brothers and sisters may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”

In essence St. Paul is speaking to his responsibility to be a Christian leaven to the world even when the social trends do not accept the message of Jesus Christ. St. Paul is speaking to the courage it takes to be obedient to the full message of salvation of Jesus Christ in the face of people who think it crazy or outdated, or not applicable in certain stratas of life. In the face of the rejection he received he said, “The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” In other words, as the message is spit back in his face, he becomes all the more convicted to be true to the cross he received in baptism, true to the calling to be the herald of Jesus Christ to those who consistently reject it.

Imagine for a moment if we took on the mind of St. Paul in every dimension of our lives. I am the first to say, it's easier when we are in a group of like minded people to cling to the teachings of Christ which have been passed down through the teachings of the Church, yet once the group is diluted with non-believers and skeptics, it's easy for us to fold and morph into the public opinion rather than the opinion of Jesus Christ.

What does our Gospel say about all of this?

We hear, “At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others who he sent in pairs.” Scholars say the appointment of seventy-two represents the missionary vision of the Gospel message to the whole world.

Jesus says, “The Harvest is abundant but the laborers are few... so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

This particular line from the 10th chapter of Luke’s Gospel has often been associated with the need for more priests, deacons, sisters and brothers to be the harvest gathers. Yes, this is the case, but what the Church needs more than anything else, what Christianity needs more than anything else, what our nation and world needs more than anything else, is you, the faithful, priest, prophets and kings by virtue of your baptism, to rise up, pick up your mats and go into the world with the blaring cross as your guide, establishing and maintaining Christian virtues and morality in your own place, to fulfill what our late Pope John Paul the II called "the New Evangelization."

Now more than ever my friends we must be vigilant, courageous and persistent that each decision made in our families, within this Church community, within our local, state and national governments are rooted in Christian principles, principles that respect the unborn, principles that respect the immigrant, principles that safeguard Christian marriage and the family, principles that guarantee the right to worship without apologies, principles that ultimately reflect the living presence of God in our midst, principles that speak to the eternal life we all await.

On this 4th of July weekend, we must give thanks to God for our wonderful nation, and for all who have worked and died unselfishly to guarantee life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all, but we my friends, its Christian residents, must also be on guard, must be ready to maintain that we are one Nation Under God. Strengthened by the Eucharist may we go out and bring in the harvest of the Lord! Amen and God Bless America!

Father Kastl Homily May 29/30th

2010-06-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, Year C
Fr. Kastl

All across our nation, we are remembering… Remembering the brave men and women who have given up their lives in selfless service in order to defend and preserve the freedom we enjoy today. On this Memorial Day weekend we celebrate the interconnectedness of human relationships… relationships that have been forged by what our constitution guarantees to every human being… Who endowed by their creator have the rights to “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Some say this line from The Declaration of Independence is one of the most influential lines in the English language, for it declared and solidified some of mans most basic desires… life, liberty and happiness.

Much has happened since those 13 colonies declared their independence from Great Britain on July 4th, 1776…the movement from colonies to states, from the revolutionary war to our present day wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, from presidents George Washington to Barak Obama from laws that protected life to laws that make others vulnerable… Both a beautiful and sad history that has been interwoven as human beings struggle to live out their deepest desires for life, liberty and happiness… We can do nothing but marvel at the power of human relationships to either build up or tear down… to strengthen or to destroy!

Yes, it is Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember the important and influential people in our lives, human relationships that have either shaped us directly or who have shaped our country, but it is also Trinity Sunday, a day to reflect upon and celebrate our relationship with of our Divine Godhead, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The late Pope John Paul the Second said, “In the communion of grace with the Trinity, mans ‘living area’ is broadened and raised up to the supernatural level of divine life. Man lives in God and by God.”

“Man lives in God and by God”… Our first reading from Proverbs makes the same point… “Thus say’s the wisdom of God: The LORD posses me, the beginning of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago from of old I was poured forth, at first, before the earth.”

Wisdom is saying… Before anything thing else came into existence, God sent His Wisdom forth… Wisdom was present to make known God's presence and creative hand from the time the heavens were created along with the skies, the foundations of the earth, the seas and all they contain, finally “finding delight in the human race.” God’s Wisdom has been the constant thread throughout all of history, striving to imbue it with his presence and his intentionality…

What is the intentionality of God? The intentionality of God could be summed up in the same words of the Declaration of Independence… God desires that all his created beings enjoy “Life, liberty and happiness” Life, liberty and happiness now, in anticipation for the life, liberty and happiness that await us in heaven.

God desires as the late pope said to “broaden our area of living”… How? By living in the communion of grace with the holy Trinity… by seeing the importance of the interconnectedness between our life and the lives of our families with the life of our God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit…It is in this union, that grace, strength, holiness… ultimately the power of God is channeled into our lives.

Someone once asked me… How does one know if they are living in communion with God… What are the hallmarks of a fruitful Christian life? Is it seen by the number of ministries you sign up for and are involved in, is it seen by how many rosaries you pray or hours of adoration you attend, is it seen by the amount of money you put in the collection plate or give to other charities… Are these external signs a true testimony of living in that communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Although all of these things are extremely important, they are only as good as they are leading us deeper in union with God and one another… they are only as good as they are strengthening us to be in the Christian project for a life time.

We hear in our reading from St. Paul to the Romans… “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions.”

As all of us know, most human relationships that have not been forged over time through patience, sacrifice and forgiveness will go away, the same tends to be true in our relationship with God. Unless we continually dispose ourselves to grace and the Holy Spirit by making our faith a central priority in our life by spending time in prayer, having discussions of faith with those around us, prayerfully reading the scriptures, celebrating the sacraments, especially the sacrament of reconciliation and Eucharist, praying with your spouse, children and parents, doing works of charity, then it will be hard to boast in the hope of Jesus as St. Paul says… and even harder to boast and maintain a closeness to God in the midst of the afflictions that will inevitably come our way…

On this Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, let us be renewed in our Intimacy with God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a God who is always calling us to a new and more abundant life, a life steeped in Holy Wisdom, a wisdom that forms our hearts and minds in the ways of holiness which lead us to heavenly freedom, freedom which propels us to freely put ourselves at the service of the other.

All glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be a world without end. Amen.

Father Kastl's Pentecost Homily

2010-05-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Solemnity of Pentecost, Year C
~ Fr. Kastl~

This past Thursday I had the honor of presiding and preaching at the St. Mary 8th grade graduation. The theme of my homily was about the many transitions we make in a lifetime. In essence life is a connected series of transitions which begins when a child transitions from the safe confines of his or her mother’s womb into the beautiful world we live in all the way to the moment we take our last breath and transition from this life into the life to come… Transitions are a fact of life… something we can learn to embrace or resist.

This time of year truly is all about transitions… From ashes to Resurrection, from Resurrection to Ascension, from Ascension to the Solemnity we celebrate today, Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostle in order to equip them to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ, which brings an end to the Easter Season transitioning and propelling us forwards into ordinary time where preschoolers are preparing to go into kindergarten, 5th graders are preparing to go into middle school, 8th graders are preparing to go into high school, seniors are preparing to go into college, college graduates are preparing to go into the workforce… This is a gitty, lively and exciting time of change and movement in our lives…

Yet in the midst of the many transitions and movements we make in our lives, I often wonder if we invest a proportionate amount of time and focus on the transitions of our spiritual lives, transitions that should be leading us closer to Christ…

As we get so caught up in the external transitions and rites of passage or even the more surface things we do like buying or building new houses, buying new cars, repainting and decorating rooms in our homes, taking summer trips, belonging to summer sports leagues or even vacation bible school… do these many transitions detract from or build up our spiritual lives to be more in line with the teachings and expectations of Jesus? Does the business that comes from these transitions form our Identity; or rather is the Holy Spirit, the animator of life forming us?

Our readings from the Acts of the Apostles takes place at the conclusion of the Jewish festival of Pentecost which was celebrated 50 days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was a feast to commemorate the end of the harvest season, a busy and bustling time for the community. It was a pilgrimage feast which would have drawn devout Jews from every nation to Jerusalem… It was a time of transition for the Jewish people, a time of movement, a time to look ahead to the next season of life …

We hear… “They were all in one place together” In essence they had stopped, they were still, and they were receptive… “And suddenly there came from the sky a strong driving wind and it filled the entire house in which they were… They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

The striking reality of this encounter is that there was a before and an after… there is a transition… a “before” the gift of the Holy Spirit and an “after” the gift of the Holy Spirit… A “before” where life was ordinary and an “after” where life was extraordinary… A “before”when they were divided by language and sects and an “after” although they retained their different languages we hear… “At this sound (the devout Jews) heard them speaking in their own language.” They asked, “How does each of us hear them in his native language?”

The coming of the Holy Spirit became the binding agent of humanity, a diverse humanity that was redeemed by the one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…

The Holy Spirit was and is the glue, animator and director of our lives…

In St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we here… “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different forms of service but the same Lord. There are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone…” Why you might ask? St. Paul continues… “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”

These three lines from Corinthians are packed with theological meaning… “Different gifts”….same Spirit… “Different forms of service” … same Lord… “Different workings”… Same God… What we hear St. Paul telling us is that all gifts, all service, all workings… in essence all human activity finds its origin and completion in God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit… Every ounce of our being should be rooted in God… without being immersed in the essence and intention of God and filled with the spirit, then all of our doings are nothing more than busyness, busy fluttering transitions that are rooted more in earthly grandeur and gratification than a focus on heaven.

These words of Paul should leave us with more questions… What are my gifts, what kind of service am I being called to, what are the works that need to be done in order to achieve God's will for me?

Just as I told the 8th graders during their graduation homily, the only sure way to make it through this life and its many transitions is to know thy self… to know thy self in a relationship with God, trusting, truly trusting that He has a plan for you and He has equipped you with the gifts and talents you need in order to fulfill a mission which has not been entrusted to anyone else but you!

It is the Holy Spirit my friends, which is inside of each of us that allows us as individuals and as a Christian community to truly build up the Kingdom of God here in our midst… It was through the gifts of the Spirit that the Church was born and continues to exist, for the grace of the Spirit allows us to unselfishly and humbly put our gifts and talents at the service of others…

On mother’s day, I gave a homily that stirred many of your hearts… some of you liked it and others I know might have found it a little offensive as I spoke honestly about some of the alarming trends I am seeing in our society and within our faith community today… Things which I believe are the result of priorities that have “transitioned” and re-centered more on convenience and societal trends than on Gospel values… Several of you have asked… how do we reclaim or transition back to a more balanced way of life centered on Jesus Christ?

The answer…opening ourselves to the gifts of Holy Spirit… The gifts of the Spirit… wisdom, understanding, council, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord are the spiritual tools we need in order to live fruitful, examined and faithful lives…

In our Gospel, after Jesus had breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” he gave them this commission… "Whose sins you forgive are forgiven, whose sins you retain are retained.”

In looking at all of our readings this Sunday it becomes clear the Holy Spirit helps us discern our Christian purpose, our vocation, by discerning what gifts and talents we have been given… the Holy Spirit helps us see where those gifts and talents can be put at the service of others… The Holy Spirit gives us the courage to reflect upon our lives, always asking if we are living in accordance with God's plan… The Holy Spirit enlightens us as to our sinfulness and leads us to our knees to ask forgiveness through the sacrament of Reconciliation… The Holy Spirit empowers us to get back up, brush ourselves off, not seeing ourselves as the sum total of our sinfulness… it encourages us not to surrender to the allurements that surround us in order to live as God intends…

You see dear friends, even in our spiritual lives, we must be aware of and open to transition… allowing the Holy Spirit to transition us into places we thought we would never go. It is the Holy Spirit that will strengthen us to rejoice and prioritize our lives in such a way to be faithful and authentic Christian witnesses before others.

“Come Holy Spirit fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your live. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and they shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.”

Father Kastl's May 9th Homily, Mother's Day

2010-05-19T07:44:00.000-07:00

I had many requests to post Father Kastl's homily from Mother's Day. Here it is.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

In the final blessing for mothers in the Rite of Baptism we hear these beautiful words:
God the Father, through his Son, the Virgin Mary’s child, had brought joy to all Christian mothers as they see the hope of eternal life shine on their children.

This mother’s day gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the beautiful gift of motherhood, but it also gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the gift of the family, which is made up of mother and father, children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren for some.

The prayer that I just shared with you speaks only partially to what makes up the family of origin, so I would also like to share with you a few lines from the prayer over the father, not to take away from you mothers on this your special day…

God is the giver of all life, human and divine. May he bless the father of this child. He and his wife will be the first teachers of their child in the ways of faith.

If we listen closely to both the prayer over the mother and the prayer over the father, we soon get a very profound theology of married life, or even more fundamentally, the role of the Christian mother, the role of the Christian father in regards to the children who have been entrusted to them by God.

Let us listen to these prayers once again…“God the Father has brought joy to all mothers as they see the hope of eternal life shine on their children” and “He and his wife will be the first teachers of their child in the ways of faith.”

These prayers speak to the unmistakable reality of the responsibility of the mother and the father to raise up the souls of their children. It is an unmistakable reality that it is the primary and absolute responsibility of the mother and father to safeguard, nurture, invigorate, challenge and sustain the faith their children receive in baptism.

Over the past few months, both Msgr. Dorney and I along with our staff have been discussing how this church community truly models the vision of the Universal Church, the vision of Christ in regards to the family. Do we preach, promote and provide programs that enable you, the fathers and mothers to fully actualize your vocation as a Christian mother or Christian father?

As “Fathers” ourselves, both Msgr. and I take our roles very seriously… seeing each of you as a soul entrusted to our care, taking our responsibility to help your families do more than just belong to this community of faith by going to Mass, attending religious education on Sunday mornings or attending our school. Just like a parent who must make certain promises on the day of the baptism of their child, so have we made certain promises to you… Just like a parent who has to make certain decisions on a daily basis to secure the wellbeing of their children, so do we have to make decisions that we feel safeguards and promotes the deposit of faith that is to be lived and actualized among you who fill these pews each Sunday.

I say all of this to remind us of the inseparable connection between the Church and the domestic family. Ultimately the Church is made up of Christian families who come together to share in each other lives and be strengthened by the Sacraments. You are the Church; you are just as much the inheritors of the faith from Christ as the bishops, priests and deacons, although we have different roles in the body of Christ.

If I were to ask the mothers and fathers who are here today, what are the biggest preoccupations that you have for your spouse and your children in regards to their future, I am sure the list would include some of the following… that your children have a knowledge of the faith, they have a sense of self worth and importance, their basic needs are provided for, that they are happy and healthy, that they are in stable and loving relationships, they have the gift of employment and descent housing, that they continue to grow in and practice the Catholic faith into adulthood and the list could go on and on…

If you were to ask Msgr. Dorney or I the same question in regards to our biggest preoccupations for the Christian family of the Church the list might include things like… a desire for our people to have a personal relationship with Christ, to be lifelong learners in the faith, have a sense of self worth and belonging, they make church a top priority, have a deep and abiding love for the sacraments, are in stable and lasting relationships, have a sense of ownership for this their community…seeing all that we have, time, talent and treasure as a gift from God.

In many ways these lists don’t run in opposite directions, rather they intersect and mingle in this holy place, “diversity meets community” to be molded, shaped and transformed into the living presence of Christ in our world.

Yet, to be transformed into this living presence of Christ takes the resolve to belong, engage and be committed to a life of discipleship.

As one of the “Fathers” of this community I am often amazed and humbled at the commitment and sacrifices many of you make on a daily bases in your walk with Christ, yet as with any parent, there are also certain things, certain preoccupations that keep me up at night or better yet, raise my anxiety about my effectiveness as a priest in this community.

In the face of so much goodness, I can’t help but ask, how could the Church do better in the formation of individuals and families? What are we not doing that needs to be done to respond to an ever increasing secular society whose values seem to overpower our Christian values of family life and morality.

When I see soccer fields filled on Sunday mornings, people leaving mass early to get to sporting games or other extracurricular activities, when I see people, and I convict myself at times on this one, with their faces so glued to their iphones and other electronic gadgets that they are unable to carry on a true and living conversation with others, when I encounter young people who have lost a sense of reverence and respect for their elders, when I see the advertisement for the newest primetime TV shows and hear about how much time Catholics spend watching this trash, when I see parents getting upset about what we invite them to do in regards to the religious formation of their child or asking what is the least they need to do to educate their child in the ways of faith, when I see families not coming to church together to accommodate sports schedules or just because little Johnny or Suzie didn’t want to come today, when I see people enter into this sacred space just as they would a sports arena, dressed like they just got out of bed, chewing gum, sipping Starbucks, and not genuflecting… These things keep me up at night asking myself what have I not done as a Father to guide and direct the faithful in a way that our faith remains pure and undefiled by the litter of a secular society…

If we look at the Acts of the Apostles, the tension of what it meant to belong to the Christian community has existed from the beginning… The struggle to understand the role of Christ in the plan of salvation, the struggle between the Jews and Gentiles over Mosaic practices… We hear, “There arose no little dissention and debate by Paul and Barnabas with them…”

The struggle and tension of following the ways of Christ has always existed. Yet what we also hear in this reading from the Acts of Apostles is an invitation from the Apostles, is a request for faith, trust and obedience in the community, the Church… “Since we have heard that some of our number who went out without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings and disturbed your peace of mind, we have with one accord decided to choose representatives and to send them to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.”

The role of the Church is then seen as a gathering place, not for those who have it all together, the holier than thous, rather a place where all gather with an openness and malleability in the ways of Jesus Christ, a message that calls out of ourselves, out of our own wants and needs, a call to sacrifice our time, our own desires and perspective to be in community and communion not just with God through Jesus Christ, but to be in community of mind and heart with our husbands, wives, children, friends and strangers… The Church, which was established as our vessel to heaven.

Dear friends, although mother Church can at times raise her ugly, stinky human head, the deposit of faith which she posses, the sacramental life she carries out, remains unstained by the defilement of men. It is the Church, who is our vessel in this life, a vessel leading us, supporting us and challenging us not to settle in for a life time on earth, rather to use our time on earth to live well now in anticipation for the life to come… We get that vision in our reading from Revelation… “The angel took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down from heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God almighty and the Lamb.”

I pray that all of us, Mother, Fathers, Children, Bishops, Priests and Deacons alike, may truly take our respective roles and responsibilities in the Church seriously… Keeping in mind the question I asked you on Palm Sunday… “If someone was to look at all aspects of our life would they truly and undoubtedly know that Jesus Christ is the Lord of our lives, the Lord of our families, the Lord of our Church? For Christ gives a great promise to those who remain faithful to THE WAY” Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you.”