In today’s first reading, Naaman the Syrian gives us all an example of what we need to do if we desire healing from God. Despite being a high ranking official, he has the humility to admit his weakness and seek help. He perseveres despite being rejected by the king of Israel, passed off to some lowly prophet who won’t even come out to meet him, and then being told to literally go take a flying leap into the Jordan River. With a little help from his friends and great humility on his part, he gains the gift of healing he so desired.

The example of Naaman is a pattern for all of us to follow. Jesus even suggests him to us in today’s gospel. If you want to be healed, you’ve got to recognize your need, be humble enough to seek out God through the means he has established in his Church, and then persevere. Jesus is waiting to heal us, but if we are too proud to come confess our sins, or think that we can do this on our own, then we will experience the sad scene of the gospel; Jesus will walk right through the midst of us and we will miss him.

In 1521, St. Ignatius of Loyola had a powerful conversion that turned him from a life of worldly dissipation to becoming one of the greatest saints in the Church. The key moment for him came when he was recovering from an injury sustained in the battle of Pamplona. While forced to lay in bed all day he began to read about the life of Jesus and the saints. He wondered if maybe he could do the things they did. Yet, he still loved to dream of battle and romantic conquests. Gradually, he became aware that the thoughts of God brought him a lasting joy whereas the other thoughts brought only momentary pleasure. He then asked the question that would change his life forever, “Why?” This led him to an understanding of the workings of both the good and evil spirits and the writing of his rules for discernment of spirits that continue to bless the Church to this day.

A similar experience happens to Moses in our first reading today. He too becomes aware of something very important. In the movie “The 10 Commandments” Joshua is with Moses but sees nothing special, just “a bush that burns.” Moses, however, not only notices the bush in the first place, but is aware that there is something special about this bush. While burning, it is not consumed. He too asks the question, “Why?” This question is at the heart of all knowledge and learning. The official seal of the University of Kansas actually depicts this famous meeting between God and Moses at the burning bush encircled with the words of Moses which serve as the university’s motto: Videbo visionem hanc magnam, quare non comburatur rubus…”I will see this great vision, why the bush is not burned.”

For both Ignatius and Moses, becoming aware and asking “Why?” ultimately led them to an encounter with the living God. The same can be true for us. How aware are we of the workings of the spirit in our lives? Sadly, we seldom take time for this awareness. Instead, we often try to avoid thinking too much about why we do what we do or feel a certain way. Instead, we try to remain constantly distracted through TV, music, Internet, or a host of other sources of “entertainment.” Often the real reasons behind what we do or how we feel are too painful and so we try to ignore them. Lent is a great time to strip away some of these distractions and allow ourselves to be a little uncomfortable with some silence and to be aware of things that we had maybe been avoiding.

The story of the fig tree in the Gospel shows us what happens if we don’t pay attention to what’s happening in our spiritual life; we will be fruitless and barren. The gardener has the perfect example for us. He realizes that maybe the tree is not producing fruit because no one has paid enough attention to it. He decides to cultivate the soil and fertilize it. That is the great call to us this Lent, to begin paying attention and become aware, to live deliberately. If we do this, as was the case for Ignatius and Moses, we will soon find ourselves in a beautiful and new encounter with God. Yet, the lesson of the fig tree is also that time is limited and results are exected. Don’t put off making the changes you know you need to make. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Today’s first reading from the prophet Daniel gives us a beautiful example of humility before God. When we humbly admit our sinfulness, it is then that God is able to show us his mercy. He would of course be just in condemning us, but Jesus instead teaches us that the Father is merciful. He then cautions us that, if we receive God’s mercy and forgiveness, then we should also be merciful to our brothers and sisters. The measure with which we measure will be measured back to us. In other words, don’t be stingy with showing mercy to others. What goes around comes around and we’d probably hope that God will be merciful in judging us. Let’s do the same for those around us.

Praying over the scriptures today, I began wondering about what was meant by saying that we a people that God has made “peculiarly” his own. A little research and some dusting off of my Hebrew and Greek led me to some interesting insights into God’s plan for our life. We are called to be not only peculiar, but holy, and perfect. That idea of being perfect is often troubling. Yet, if we look at the Greek word that underlies the English we can see how wonderful this call is and also why it makes sense that we have to love our enemies as the Gospel indicates.

While watching the Olympics recently, I was very interested in the “freestyle skiing” competition. The athletes ski down a steep hill and then into a ramp that throws them high in the air while they do all kinds of flips and twists before landing. I wondered how one would ever get the courage to do this the first time. I suppose that they probably didn’t start with the complicated moves we see on TV at the Olympics. They probably started with just learning how to ski and maybe with one simple flip. As they progressed they gradually added more flips and twists as they were pushed by the competition.

I noticed that the spiritual life is a lot like this. God doesn’t ask us to put on skis for the first time and head down a mountain in an attempt to flip 8 times with 5 twists. Rather, we start small, maybe just learning how to ski. This is what Lent is for. We learn how to discipline our wills, not by doing large and extravagant penances, but starting small, by learning how to say “no” to things like candy. As we learn to resist these smaller temptations during Lent, we may find that we can do more than we thought. We may start to feel comfortable stretching ourselves, adding a few more flips to our spiritual repertoire.

Let us do our best to compete this Lent, to compete against ourselves and our weaknesses, to overcome the temptations of the devil, and emerge from the wilderness triumphant just as Jesus did in the Gospel today.

Many people speak of the great joy they find in their relationship with God. You can see how alive they are with the Spirit. This is a truly beautiful gift from God. However, have you ever felt like God seemed distant, your prayer dry, with no love for the things of God? Sadly, many of us can relate more with the second category than the first. Yet, St. Ignatius of Loyola has some really encouraging news for those who find themselves in this group. He assures us that we all will at times experience this state which he calls spiritual desolation, and it doesn’t mean that we’ve done anything wrong or that God really is absent. Today’s homily shares some of the wisdom from St. Ignatius for what to do in desolation, how to overcome it, and how to grow in our faith.

God tells us today through the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” John Henry Cardinal Newman reminds us that this means we all have a special mission from God that is given to no other. It would be a great tragedy if we went through life without ever knowing our mission. The recent anniversary of the legalization of abortion in this country is also a tragedy that becomes even greater when you think about all the unique missions that have been lost. A commercial that is set to be shown during the Superbowl this year is creating some interesting controversy in this area. This week’s homily explores the unique mission given to each of us and our reasons to have hope for the future.

Sometimes as we go through life we can become so focused on our present situation that forget our larger place in history. We can even wander away from our core principles if we fail to review them from time to time. A recent trip to Washington, D.C. provided an opportunity for me to reflect on the history of our country and the principles that define it. It was surprising to notice all the references to God that were carved in the stone of all the buildings. In many ways we have forgotten the context in which our country was founded. Although I didn’t climb up to see it, I was reminded that atop the Washington Monument, the highest stone in the entire city bears the simple message, Laus Deo, “Praise be to God.” This is the mark the our founding fathers wanted to leave on history. We pray that when the history of our lives is written that they may be a great monument rising to the heaven and capped with the final words, “Praise be to God.”

In the summer of 2008, a movie came out called “WALL-E”. The plot is set many years in the future when Earth has become so covered with trash that nothing will grow anymore. All the people are forced to leave the planet and live in spaceships while trash collecting robots clean up the earth. WALL-E is one of these robots. One can imagine how sad the people must have been as they left Earth behind. Yet it was not without hope. The departure was only temporary. As soon as the Earth was cleaned up, they could return. They created a system of probes to go regularly and check on the Earth. As soon as plants began to grow again, the probes would bring back the evidence that it was safe to return.

In the course of the movie the great day finally arrives when a probe returns to one of the spaceships with a tiny plant from Earth. At last, the good news that had long been awaited has arrived. Everyone can now return home. However, instead of the expected great joy, something different happens. You see, the people had been living so long in the spaceships that they had grown accustomed to this new life. The movie shows them all fat and lazy, sitting on little floating chairs watching TV all day. In a great twist, the people don’t receive the “good news” as good at all. They’re not much interested in returning to Earth. Moreover, the one in charge of the spaceships kind of likes being in charge and doesn’t want to see it end. He tries to hide news of the plant and then even sets about frantically trying to kill the little plant. How could good news go so wrong?

I was reminded of this movie by our gospel today. Much like the people in the movie were supposed to be patiently waiting their return to Earth, the Israelites in Jerusalem were supposed to be anxiously preparing for the Messiah. However, as time passed, the Israelites began to grow accustomed to their enslaved state. They made compromises with the Romans and worshiped their gods. The began to fit in with the pagans around them and forgot all about waiting for the Messiah. Then one day in our gospel, the Magi show up and announce the good news that at last the long-awaited Messiah has been born. What is the reaction?

Just as in the movie, the good news is not seen as being so good. The gospel tells us that the Magi were “overjoyed at seeing the star” and yet when the people in Jerusalem get the news, they are “troubled.” A new Messiah would mean that all their lives would have to change. Even if this would be for the better, it’s often easier to just keep on doing what you’re used to. King Herod himself has grown rather accustomed to being in charge and doesn’t like the idea of a new king. Instead of welcoming his savior, he sets about trying to kill him just as they tried to kill the little plant in the movie.

What’s the message here for us? I think you have to ask why these outsiders, these Magi, were able to see something that everyone in Jerusalem missed. We don’t know exactly what the star of Bethlehem looked like, but it couldn’t have been all that obvious. Rather, these Magi were experts at studying the start. They probably spent many hours looking to the heavens and so they were watching when the star appeared and were able to identify it. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, people were figuratively looking at the ground. They were looking at this world and how to compromise and get by and stopped looking in the right place, toward heaven.

The message of Christmas is not just that Jesus came 2000 years ago, but that he comes to us today. He brings us good news. He offers to radically change our lives for the better if we follow him. Do we really see it as good news? Maybe we have become like the people in WALL-E and just enjoy being fat and lazy as we try to get by with our eyes fixed on this world rather than on heaven. The star shines for us today just as it did for the Magi. They left everything to follow the star. The question is, “Will we?”

There is a popular Christmas carol that asks of the newborn Jesus, “What child is this who laid to rest on Mary’s lap is sleeping?” Today, on this octave day of Christmas, the Church gives us this feast in honor of Mary under the title “Mother of God.” Many non-Catholics at first might have difficulty with this title. However, the answer to the question posed by the carol, “What child is this?”, is also the answer to any objections to calling Mary the Mother of God. Mary gave birth to the child Jesus and this child was, is, and always will be God. Mary is therefore properly called Mother of God.

In the history of the Church, this title was actually first questioned by a Catholic bishop in 431. Although the Church had been referring to Mary as Mother of God for some time, the bishop Nestorius thought that this title implied that Mary was somehow the origin of God the way any parent could be seen as the origin of their child. Obviously Mary is not the source of the Godhead since Jesus was God even before his conception. Still a Council was called in Ephesus to determine if this title should continue to be used. What was discovered was that, if it was said that Mary was not the Mother of God, then the logical question would return to our carol, “What child is this?”

As is the case with all of the doctrines regarding Mary, they speak not so much about Mary but rather about Jesus. Was Jesus always God? Because Nestorius did not want to admit that Mary was the Mother of God, he then ended up denying that Jesus was God at his birth. Needless to say, the council fathers rejected Nestorius and affirmed the long-held teaching of the Church that Jesus was always God and Mary, his mother, is therefore rightfully called Mother of God.

Today we celebrate that Mary is also our mother. Jesus gave her to us from the cross. May she continue to protect and nuture our faith and belief in Jesus. May she intercede to bring us peace in this new year. May she do as she has always done…lead all of us closer to Jesus.

God was always a Trinity of persons from all eternity. The second person of the trinity, the Son, always existed. Yet, we celebrate at Christmas that he took on flesh and was born in time. This reminds us of an important truth. This world is good, so good that God himself entered into it and became one of us. He who was eternally begotten of the Father, and is now begotten of Mary and enters his own creation. However, Jesus comes into this world to lead us beyond this world. As good as this world is, it’s not all there is. St. John reminds us today “Do not love this world or the things of this world.” We have to keep things in perspective. Christmas us the we are good enough that God would become one of us, but it also reminds us that we are too good for this earth. We are made for heaven. Let us remember this Christmas that Jesus came to earth so that we might come to heaven.

St. Thomas Becket is perhaps the most famous martyr of the middle ages. He was Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry II who later also named him Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas did not want to be bishop and it soon became clear that he had only been named to this post because the king assumed he would be a pushover who would easily allow him to control the Church in England. For a while, Thomas was actually willing to go along with plan. However, the grace of ordination eventually caught up with him and, to his credit, Thomas responded. He stood up faithfully for the Church and defended her against the intrusions of the king. Thomas eventually gave his life rather than submit any more to the king’s plan.

Today, maybe society isn’t going to threaten us with martyrdom if we don’t play along, but there are pressures. If you stand up the faith and refuse to give into the secular watering down of society then you will suffer. Jesus promised this. How do we allow ourselves to be played by society and merely used? Where are we being called to take a stand like St. Thomas and say that we’ve had enough. The readings continue to speak of light and darkness. Let’ make sure that we continue to follow the path of light.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone could see a little baby as a threat, yet that is what we see recounted in our gospel today. When Jesus was born, the shepherds and magi see in the Christ Child a savior. Herod, however, sees only a rival to be feared and eliminated. The “Holy Innocents” we celebrate today are all those little babies that Herod had murdered in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. Sadly, this event is not the first such occurrence in Scripture. When the Israelites grew numerous in Egypt, Pharaoh also sensed a rival and thus ordered all the babies to be thrown in the river. Despite this attempt, Moses, like Jesus, escaped the plot. The important point in these stories is to recognize that God’s plan was brought about even in spite of these murderous efforts to thwart it. Many babies died in Egypt and Bethlehem and yet Moses and Jesus remained safe. God’s plan was accomplished.

Sadly, some today continue to look upon children as an inconvenience just as Pharaoh and Herod did. Like them, people continue to make the mistake of thinking that killing babies will eliminate our problems. No, the Scripture shows us clearly that God’s will is done. The readings speak today of light and darkness. The magi are in darkness, and yet they see the star and follow the light. They are willing to go out of their way, to change their lives to conform to God’s guidance. The magi find their way to the light. We too are often given the choice between light and darkness.

This day which commemorates the sad slaughter of so many innocent children in Bethlehem is somewhat ironically a feast day on our calendar, a day for celebrating. We celebrate the fact that Herod’s plan failed. Not only did Jesus survive, but the lives of the little babies were not snuffed out as Herod had planned. Rather, these children now live forever in heaven where they intercede for us. Yes, we rejoice to see that God’s plan is triumphant even in the face of great opposition and evil. Light will always be triumphant over darkness. The only question that remains is, “Who’s side are we going to be on?”

On this day when we honor the Holy Family, we might be temped to merely look at Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as a unique group in history to be admired but not much else. Yet, the Church never holds up saints or anything holy merely to be looked at like a museum piece. Rather, the saints show us what we are capable of and inspire us to imitate their holiness. Our families are called to be “holy families” too!

This may at first seem like a rather difficult task to imitate the Holy Family. They seem so unique. If we look closely though, we see that they had their difficulties and struggles just like any family. Mary and Joseph were real parents who had to take care of and raise little Jesus. Jesus, we are told, had to learn and grow in wisdom and knowledge. Today we read how the young boy Jesus got lost. Although the Holy Family was indeed given special graces for their special mission, much of their life was not so different from ours.

God has chosen to use the family as his special means to bring about the salvation of the world. He chose to be born into a family. He has given us our families, with all their imperfections, to be our means to salvation as well. There is a special blessing in the fact that we don’t choose our families. We can plan out our lives all we want but, in this most important area of family, it’s up to God. Parents don’t choose their kids and kids don’t choose their parents. We’re stuck with each other. Yet, if we really stop an think about it, we probably wouldn’t have it any other way. Our family may not be perfect, but it is our family. Our family is God’s gift to us to show us his love and today we ask him to help make us a little more holy, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Our first reading from Isaiah gives us those beautiful and familiar words, “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” The people of God at the time of Isaiah knew well that they needed a savior. Today, if we are to experience the full joy of Christmas, we too must recognize our desperate need for our savior, Jesus Christ. These four titles foretold of the Messiah by the prophet give us a way to recognize this need.

In a world filled with voices speaking lies and promising happiness from every form of sin, we need a counselor. We need a sure guide who will give us true teaching and lead us to truth. We need a wonder-counselor.

We also need heroes. A hero is someone who inspires us by showing all that is great an good about the human race. A hero shows us a glimpse of what we all might be capable of. We tend to idolize sports figures and celebrities as our heroes today, but they ultimately let us down. Jesus Christ is the ultimate and greatest hero, the God-hero. No one better shows us what we are capable of and inspires us to perfection like Jesus.

Many of us can testify first hand to the need for a savior for our families. The devil knows that the family is God’s key to manifesting his love for the world. Fatherhood has suffered greatly in recent times. We need a savior, a Father-Forever, to restore our families. Jesus is the love of the Father incarnate. He shows us what it means to love with a family love. God is not some distant power, but a father who loves us. Jesus reveals this love to us.

Finally, perhaps most associated with Christmas is the desire for peace. In a world plagued by war and violence, we need a prince of peace. Yet, the peace that Jesus brings is not merely an earthly peace. There has always been and always will be war in this life. Jesus brings us the chance to have peace no matter what difficulties life might throw at us. This is a heavenly peace that no one can take away.

The angles sing at Jesus’ birth, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” May our Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, our Prince of Peace, bring us this joy and heavenly peace this Christmas.

The Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament represented the presence of God to the Israelites. It was his dwelling place. As they journeyed through the wilderness they kept the ark in the tabernacle, the meeting tent. Upon arriving in the promised land, David decided to build a more permanent structure. His son, Solomon, would eventually build this great temple to be God’s house. Yet at Christmas we celebrate something even greater. God no longer dwells in tents or buildings. Rather we celebrate that God took on flesh and became incarnate. Our own flesh became God’s house when Jesus became man. This is a greater wonder and a more glorious dwelling then anyone ever imagined. This is what we celebrate at Christmas.

Today’s gospel tells of the birth of John the Baptist. You might remember the gospel from a few days ago in which little John was described as “leaping for joy” in the womb of Elizabeth when Mary arrived carrying the baby Jesus in her womb. It should be perfectly clear from Scripture that no Christian could ever hold to the lie that babies are nothing more than “tissue” before they are born. These two little ones were not only alive in a natural sense, but even alive in the spiritual sense, responding to the grace of the Holy Spirit.

It is a great irony to think that after Jesus is born, this little baby would be seen as such a threat that Herod would have all the baby boys in Bethlehem murdered. How can a baby threaten anyone? Yet, Herod found the birth of this new “king” to be an inconvenience to his own plans. Jesus would have brought Herod happiness that he never could have planned for; instead he planned to have Jesus killed. Fear and selfishness sometimes cause us to do irrational and even diabolical things.

Unfortunately, the crime of Herod was not the first such incident in history. Pharoh had done a similar deed at the time of Moses. Nor was Herod the last to have such ideas. Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, on the very night when Christians everywhere will gather in prayer to celebrate the birth of a little baby, the United States Senate will instead be meeting to plot for the first time in history to force all tax payers to cooperate in the murder of millions of little babies through the forced public funding of abortion. Not much has changed in 2000 years.

It remains a great sadness today as it was in the time of Moses and Jesus to ever think of a little baby as a threat that needs to be killed. However, the line from the Gospel today that most saddens me with regard to abortion is the observation of the crowd at the birth of John the Baptist, “What then will this child be?” I often pose this question to parents at baptisms. I wonder about the futures of all the little babies lost to abortion. What good were they created to do? What medical cures and scientific discoveries have been lost? Perhaps someone destined to be one of the greatest saints in the Church has been aborted.

In history God has often used the birth of a baby to bring about his plans. Often this was through what we would call today an “unplanned pregnancy.” To Mary and Joseph, no preganacy could have seemed more unplanned that Jesus’, yet God had planned it from all eternity. The same is true of any baby conceived today. When faced with an unplanned pregnancy we need to ask, “What then will this child be?” Let’s pray that the Senate will change their minds and go home for Christmas to celebrate the birth of a little baby who saved the world.

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, one of the rather nice connections with Christmas and the natural world is that the celebration of Our Lord’s birth takes place just after the annual winter solstice. This is the darkest day of the year. Christmas is therefore just after this darkest time when the the light is just starting to increase each day. Obviously, the all of our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere things are quite different, but up north this connection with light and darkness is a nice addition.

However, a problem arrises when people claim that the celebration of Christmas was all made up as a replacement for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. The truth is that the exact reason for December 25th being the day of Jesus’ birth is not completely clear. There is, however, some good evidence to show that long before the celebration of Christmas, the Church celebrated the Annunciation on March 25th. Add nine months and the you can see that the date of Christmas was set based on this (I always assumed it was the other way around). Whatever the reason for the date, we celebrate the true light coming into the world as God became man. Now that’s a lot more to celebrate than just the revolving of the earth around the sun.

We often overlook the person of the Holy Spirit and his role in the Christmas story. The Father and the Son seem a bit more tangible to us in general. The Holy Spirit can be rather enigmatic. On this last Sunday of Advent, perhaps one way to make the third person of the Trinity a little more real is to remember that Mary is often referred to as the spouse of the Holy Spirit.

I often speak at weddings of how the love expressed in marriage has certain important qualities that make it unique. Married love is marked by four key characteristics; it is free, total, faithful, and fruitful. The relationship between Mary and the Holy Spirit ought to then exhibit these same characteristics. Mary gave a free assent to God’s plan. She held nothing back and gave a total gift of herself to serve God. She was faithful to the Spirit’s leading, even when she didn’t understand. The result was that, although she remained a virgin her entire life, the Spirit made her fruitful. Jesus, the Son of Mary, is the love of God incarnate, the fruit of the spousal union of Mary and the Spirit.

Mother Theresa reminded us that the surest sign of the presence of the Spirit is joy. This is what we see in Mary. After being told that she is to be the mother of God, she goes with haste to visit Elizabeth and take care of her needs. The joy of the Spirit makes even difficult tasks easy. Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and John the Baptist leaps for joy in her womb. If we find that we are lacking in joy this Christmas, maybe we need to pay more attention to the Holy Spirit and our union with God. We too are called to give ourselves freely, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully to God. If we do, the end result is clear; we will have joy.

In the ancient world, years were often reckoned according to the reign of the current leader. The current year might be given as “The 7th year of the reign of Octavian” or “The 8th year of Augustus”. For the past 2000 years, we have derived our calendar year from the birthof Jesus. Our readings today prophesy about this event that would so change the understanding of God that his title and even the calendar would have to change as a result. Despite attempts to remove Jesus from our culture and our calendar, his birth remains single most important event in history, the date on which God became man.

Today’s first reading tells of the little known prophet Balaam. He is best known for his prophecy foretelling that “A star shall advance from Jacob.” This prophecy is often interpreted as referring in part to the star of Bethlehem seen at the birth of Jesus. The readings today remind us that God has a plan for all of history. If we are going to find fulfilment and happiness then we need to conform our lives to that plan. We need to follow the star.

On this third Sunday of Advent we hear the great cry of John the Baptist, “Repent!” The word in the original Greek comes from meta, meaning a change, and noete, a command referring to the mind, the nous. So the word repent literally means “Change your minds.” When I looked it up in the dictionary I found that the full definition referred to “A change of mind leading to a change in action.” That is what we are called to do in this third week of Advent, to think differently so as to act differently.

This past week I had the rather sad occasion to baptize and confirm the little baby of our youth ministers, Bryce and Angela. It was sad because little Corrigan was born at only 23 weeks and lived for only about an hour after his birth. It is easy in these situations to wonder just what God is doing. We trust that He always brings good out of everything, but sometimes it’s hard to see. In this situation, however, it didn’t take long to receive some amazing grace from God.

I first have to say that Bryce and Angela themselves are amazing. They truly “thought differently” about this situation. While they were certainly sad at the death of their son, they also found cause to rejoice that they had a saint in heaven. Since Corrigan was baptized and confirmed before he died, we know that he is in heaven. The truly amazing part of this story is that it didn’t take very long for Corrigan to start working miracles.

One of Angela’s grade school friends saw a picture that Bryce and Angela put on the internet with them holding Corrigan. It turns out that the friend was also 23 weeks pregnant and had made an appointment to have an abortion. Seeing the picture of little Corrigan caused her to have a profound change of mind. She canceled her abortion appointment, and instead called a real doctor and scheduled an ultrasound. She has now decided to keep her baby. A change of mind leading to a change of action.

The end result of repentance leads to the other focus of this day, rejoicing. Whenever we change our minds and begin to act in accord with the plans of God we will find great joy, no matter what obstacles may come. In this third week of Advent, let us look carefully at the ways that we need to change our minds, to repent, so that we can then fully rejoice at Christmas.

The Gospel today speaks of children who are upset because people aren’t dancing along with the various tunes they are playing. Society plays many tunes for us and often we do in fact dance right along without giving much thought. It’s just easier to go with the flow and do what everyone else is doing. If we refuse we get singled out like those mentioned in the Gospel. Yet, this is what we are called to do. Let’s be careful who’s music we’re following. Let’s try to stay in tune with God.

We might think of predestination as a Calvinist idea that rightly no Christian could hold. While this is true of Calvin’s and many Protestant understandings of predestination, there is a clear teaching on predestination that Christians can find acceptable. Our readings speak of this today. God has predestined each of us for holiness. We were made to be with him forever in heaven. We celebrate Mary’s immaculate conception today as a sign of what we are all called to be. We are all called to be free from sin. This is the gift given us in baptism and restored in the sacrament of penance. Withe the Blessed Mother as our example let us all realize our common destiny, to be holy and to be with God forever in heaven.

Today Jesus shows us in the Gospel that he has the power to forgive sins. He also shows us that sometimes we need a little help getting to the point of forgiveness. The man int he Gospel is paralyzed and it is the faith of his friends that brings about his healing. We all need to be forgiven, to be healed, but we don’t have to do this alone. St. Ambrose is a great example of a friend who helped bring many people to know Jesus. His most famous convert is the great St. Augustine. Who are the people in our lives who have helped us come to know Jesus? Who do we need to reach out to and help? With a little help from our friends, and God’s grace, we can do a lot more than just get by.

Advent is a season full of symbols. We have the Advent wreath and Advent calendars. There is the Jesse tree. We put lights on our houses to symbolize the light of Christ coming into the world to scatter the darkness. At Christmas the familiar manger scenes replace the wreathes of Advent. We make special food, sing special songs, and send special cards. Yes, there are many symbols of this season. One symbol that is often overlooked is the ever familiar…orange construction cone.

Why an orange construction cone to symbolize Advent? No one likes to encounter a construction zone while driving down the road. The person holding the sign with the ominous warning “Slow” says it all. It can take a great deal of patience not to get frustrated with a construction zone. Despite the inconvenience while the construction is going on, pretty much everyone is pleased with the result when the construction is over. Driving down a nice smooth road or having a new turn lane are often worth the wait.

Today’s readings speak of our relationship with God using images taken from road construction. In order to prepare for the coming of God, we are told to straiten the crooked roads, smooth out the rough places, level the hills and fill in the valleys. As we look to get our highway prepared for the coming of God this Advent, maybe we notice a few potholes that need to be fixed. Maybe the work required is more substantial. Sometimes you’ve patched things so much that there comes a time when you need to scrape off the worn out layer and resurface. What kind of spiritual roadwork do you need to do to prepare this Advent?

In addition to the repairs that we need to make, the message on the familiar sign is a good one, “Slow.” This season can become so busy with all the extra things we add. Yet, what we need most is to slow down, take time for prayer and reflection, to simplify our lives. Maybe an orange construction cone is not such a bad symbol for Advent after all. The next time you encounter some construction, think of the smooth road being created and then remember to slow down in your own life and prepare the way of the Lord.

Today’s Gospel tells of two blind men who, despite not being able to see, are described as “following” Jesus as he passes by and then “approaching” him when he goes inside. Have you even thought how difficult that must have been? We all go through periods of darkness in our lives when it seems hard to see Jesus. We know Jesus is there, but the situation is so difficult or God seems so far away that it’s like we’re blind. The men in the Gospel give us a great example today. When things are difficult and it’s hard to see, we’ve got to keep going and keep following and approaching Jesus. After all, we walk by faith and not by sight. A little blindness now and then can be a great opportunity to strengthen our faith.

St. Andrew is best known in the Gospels as being the brother of St. Peter. He is in fact the one who introduces Peter to Jesus according to St. John’s Gospel. We know very little else about St. Andrew, but we do know that he gave his life in witness to Christ, probably on this day in A.D. 60. It is said that, like his brother, he felt unworthy to be crucified after the manner of Our Lord, so he was crucified on a cross in the shape of an ‘X’ as opposed to the familiar ‘T’. This cross has come to be known as the St. Andrew’s Cross. St. Andrew is also the patron of Scotland whose flag bears his cross. In the early Middle Ages, the relics of the saint were taken to Scotland, the “end of the earth” at the time, to keep them safe. Since that time, St. Andrew has been helping keep the faith in Scotland safe. We pray that he may inspire us to continue to take the Gospel to the “end of the earth” in our day. That might even mean to members of our family. Maybe we too have a “brother” who needs to hear about Jesus.

We begin this new year somewhat where we left last week, focused on the coming of Jesus. The message today is to be vigilant and be ready. This is really the point of the season of Advent, to prepare well for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. I’m getting asked a lot lately if the world is going to end in 2012. There’s a new movie out that uses this as part of the plot. Although I’m not recommending the movie, it does have people thinking. Will the world end in 2012? I don’t know. It might. It might end long after that…or it might end…TODAY.

Jesus tells us in the Gospel today that many will fear his coming, but that we are to hold our heads erect knowing that our redemption is at hand. Does the thought of the world ending in 2012 scare you? Why? Maybe there is something that you know you need to change that you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve been to confession. The bottom line is this; if there is something that you would change in your life to be ready if you knew the world was going to end in 2012 then…DO IT! Don’t wait, just fix it now. You may not even have until 2012.

We’ve been given the next several weeks to spiritually prepare for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. We have to realize that society is not going to help us with this. We need quiet, simplicity, and time for prayer and contemplation to awaken a sense of hope and anticipation. Society is throwing materialism, noise, and an overwhelming sense of busyness at us. Be deliberate with your preparation this Advent. Clear away anything that impedes Jesus coming fully into your life. If Jesus returned today, are you fearful or prepared and read to hold your head erect? Jesus is coming; let’s be ready.

There are two parts of thanksgiving, and I’m not referring to food and football. On this national civic holiday of Thanksgiving you will often hear people listing the things for which they are thankful. The first part of thanksgiving is knowing just what it is that we should be thankful for. This task can be harder than it seems these days. When you stop think about it, we’re a society that really has it all. Yet, just as Jesus warns time and again in the Scriptures, material wealth and “having it all” don’t lead to happiness, yet alone thanksgiving. Rather we seem to be a culture of complaining and dissatisfaction most of the time. Thanksgiving is therefore a great day to stop and smell the turkey before devouring it and remember just how fortunate we really are. There is much for which we should be thankful and that should be a cause of real joy.

However, having a lot to be thankful for is only the first part of thanksgiving. Even more important than knowing the things for which we should be thankful, we’ve got to know the one to whom we should be thankful. In today’s Gospel, we hear the story of ten lepers who are cured but that only one returns to give thanks to God. We might be tempted to think that the point is that only 1 out of 10 were thankful. I don’t think that is the case. To be cured of leprosy would have left all ten overjoyed and no doubt feeling very thankful. The difference between the one who returns and the other nine is not that one was more thankful than the others. Rather the one who returned knew not only what he should be thankful for, but to whom he needed to go to offer that thanks. He returned to to Jesus, to God, to express his gratitude.

On this great day of Thanksgiving, let us take time to to call to mind all the things we should be thankful for, our material prosperity, our freedom, our family and friends…even food and football. But let’s not forget the one to whom we owe all thanks and praise. The most important part of thanksgiving is knowing and thanking the God who gives us everything. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, today and every day.

Today’s feast marks the last Sunday of our liturgical year. It comes at the end to remind us where things are headed. Jesus Christ is King! This is true now, but it is also a truth that has not yet been fully realized. We live in this tension of the “now” and “not yet” of God’s kingdom. Our mission is to bridge this gap, to make the reign of Jesus that is not yet perfect a part of the now in which we live.

It is interesting that we celebrate Jesus today under the title of our “King.” In the Old Testament, we see that God never intended that his chosen people would have a king to rule over them. God himself was to be their king. Yet, when the Israelites settle in the promised land, they see that all the other nations have kings. Their kings lead them in battle and give them someone to rally around and to cheer for. Israel decides that they want a king too. In choosing an earthly king over God, the Israelites substitute a lesser in place of the greater.

We are not so different today. There are many ways in which we continue to substitute other things in the place that properly belongs to God. If we look at our passion for sports we can see where we love to assemble and jump up and down and scream and yell for our team. We love to rally around our teams and we idolized our sports heroes. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but we do have to realize that these desires will never be fulfilled by sporting events. They point us toward a more important reality.

This past week, over 23,000 young people gathered in Kansas City for the National Catholic Youth Conference. As we gathered in the Sprint Center it was a scene that would have been familiar to the building at the start of any major sporting event. However, something very different happened here. When the curtains parted for the team to run onto the court, instead of Michael Jordan running out, Jesus ran out to center court. Archbishop Naumann carried our Lord in the Eucharist to the altar and the crowd went crazy, better than Jordan ever got. As the lights came down and people fell to their knees, countless flashes started to go off to get a picture of the “superstar” at center court.

After a period of adoration and benediction, there was a huge procession down the middle of downtown Kansas City to Bartle hall. The scene was one that could have easily been confused for a World Series parade. People packed the street from side to side for an hour in procession. Yet, the victor at the head of this parade was not some winning sports team, but Christ the King. For a few days at NCYC, things were turned right-side up again and Jesus was in his proper place. We got to experience a little bit of the “not yet” that is possible even “now.” May this feast of Christ the King give us the courage to look hard at the places in our lives where we have substituted something else in place of the kingship of Jesus. Let’s give Jesus his proper place.

On this Memorial of the Presentation of Mary, the Gospel has an interesting connection. While not chosen specifically for this feast day, the Gospel speaks of how there is no marriage in heaven. Those called to the celibate vocation give particular witness to this fact. While different biblical scholars have different opinions, there is evidence to suggest that Mary had made a pledge of celibacy and intended to live as a consecrated virgin during her life. This vow would have probably been taken at the time of her presentation when she was dedicated to the Lord. She said yes to God’s plan then and continued to say yes over and over throughout her life. May we always say yes to God like Mary did.

Our first reading today tells the sad tale of how many of the Israelites abandoned the practice of their faith in  order to fit in better with the pagans around them. The got tired of having to live a lifestyle that was different than the rest of the culture. The Gentile king even proposes that it would be much better if everyone could be unified in worshiping the same gods. How often we hear this same logic in our own day. If only we would give up these silly religious beliefs or at least not claim to know anything with certainty; then we could all be unified. After all, religion is the cause of so much division. If we just admitted that nothing is true then there would be nothing to argue about and we could all be unified. So goes the popular wisdom. The reading today ends with the brief statement that some of the Israelites refused to abandon their faith for the sake of this false unity. They chose to die rather than submit to an evil compromise to achieve a fake unity. What will we do? How will we respond to the pressures of our time?

The football team at the high school where I am chaplain has the tradition at the end of the third quarter of raising four fingers in the air to remind everyone that it is now the 4th quarter. If the team is behind, it’s a sign that the game is not over yet. “We can still win this thing!” If the team is ahead, it’s a reminder not to quit or try to coast to a victory. “Keep up the intensity!” Four fingers in the air on the hands of all the players and coaches is a great sign to remember that the game is going to end very soon and what you do in the next quarter is going to determine the outcome.

In the readings today, Jesus also wants us to be aware of the signs of the times. As we come to the end of our liturgical year the readings remind us that, just like a football game, life does not go on forever. We are living as it were in the 4th quarter of life. Maybe there are some things we know we need to change. It’s not to late. “We can still win this thing!” Maybe we’ve been leading a pretty good life. Now is not the time to rest on our laurels. “Keep up the intensity!” One thing we cannot do is pretend that life should be easy and we can simply run out the clock on life and automatically expect to win.

One of the greatest mistakes in life is to live as though we have no enemies. Life is battle and it’s not easy. The Church has traditionally reminded us of three important enemies that we face: the world, the flesh and the devil. The world refers to all those external pressures that get in the way of our being holy. Society and all that goes with it today is not so much in the business of helping us to heaven. Sadly, much of what secular culture throws at us these days is something that we need to actively oppose. The flesh refers to all of our disordered desires, particularly those of selfishness and pride. We have to master our passions or they will control and enslave us.

Our final enemy is the devil. We have to realize that we have a real, personal, and powerful, enemy working against God’s plan for our life. We needn’t fear the devil, or any of these enemies,but we do need to engage in opposing them. When the football team holds up their four fingers, they’re not thinking “Oh no, it’s the 4th quarter; we might lose.” Rather I hear them shouting “This is our quarter!” This is the kind of confidence we need. We need to recognize that we do indeed have enemies that we must fight, but then we need to recognize that “This is our quarter!” When Pope Leo XIII received a vision that the devil would be particularly powerful in the 20th century. He confidently implored the help of St. Michael by writing the following prayer and having it prayed at the end of every Mass:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him we humbly pray,
And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host,
By the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all other evil spirits,
Who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.

With St. Michael and all our heavenly friends joining us in the fight, we know who wins this game.

Many people think a cathedral is just a really big or beautiful church. Actually, any church could be a cathedral. A cathedral gets its name from the Latin word cathedra which means “chair.” Each diocese has a church which houses a special chair reserved for the bishop. This chair represents his governing and teaching authority over the diocese. A Bishop’s church which contains his chair, his cathedra, is therefore called a cathedral.

Today we celebrate the dedication of the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The bishop of Rome is of course also the Pope and thus, if you go to the Lateran basilica you will find a chair upon which Pope Benedict sits which represents his authority over the diocese of Rome and indeed over the entire universal Church. Today’s feast is thus a commemoration of the historical event in 324 when the physical building was first dedicated, but it also serves as a spiritual reminder. The Pope and his successors teach with authority given to them by Jesus. It is only through this ongoing presence of Jesus to His Church that unity is achieved.

Pope Benedict may well be remembered as the “Pope of Christian Unity” one day. His recent welcoming of many Anglicans back into union with the Church is just one example. Jesus promised that he would not allow the Pope to lead His Church into error in matters of faith and morals. This is a divinely protected gift that works often in spite of the sinfulness of the man himself. We thank God for the example of our present Holy Father today and pray for the continued unity of all Christians.

Today’s readings present us with the tale of two widows. In biblical times, widows were some of the most vulnerable in society. With no husband to provide for them and no welfare system, they were completely on their own. The widow in our first reading has absolutely nothing, not even food enough for one more meal. In the midst of this, the prophet Elijah comes and demands that the woman bake him a cake! This would be comical if the situation wasn’t so desperate. What is God doing? Despite her destitute situation the woman complies and bakes the cake for Elijah. The result is that “the jar of flour did not go empty nor the jug of oil run dry” and she ate for a year. In giving all that she had, this woman received all that she needed and more.

The pardox present in our readings is that in order to receive, we have to give. Why does this work…because God will not be outdone in generosity. If we try to hoard and create our own security by constantly taking, then we wind up miserable, no matter how much wealth we might accumulate. If we give and continue give no matter how little we have, then we will never be wanting and we will always be content and happy.

In difficult financial times such as these, it can be easy to say “I don’t have enough money right now to give to the Church, but later I will.” This is not the example given us in the readings. Elijah recognizes that the woman is indeed in a very dire situation, yet he says to her “make me a cake first and then you can fix something for yourself.” To her credit, the woman trusts and is rewarded for her trust. The truth is that God does not need our money, but he wants our trust. No matter how little money we have, there is at least 10% of it that we can give to God “first” so as to grow our trust. How much should we give? The widows in the readings give us and example. It’s really a question of how happy we want to be.

Today’s Gospel tells us of the “unjust steward” who gets in trouble with his master for not doing a good job with his stewardship. This reading is a good opportunity to reflect on just what it means to be a steward. A steward is someone who in charged with the care of someone else’s property. We often describe the use of our time, talent, and treasure as an act of stewardship. This is a fitting word because we should realize that everything we have has been entrusted to us by God. It’s not really ours. We are stewards, caretakers, of the gifts given to us by God. The unjust steward in the Gospel makes the mistake of thinking that the master will not hold him accountable for his stewardship. We need to make sure that we don’t take this attitude with God. He too will one day demand a full accounting of our stewardship.

St. Paul cautions us today about judging our brothers and sisters. If you’ve ever tried to help someone who was doing something harmful to themselves, perhaps you’ve been reminded of this as the person demands that you stop judging them (not that they’re judging you of course). The word the Paul uses for judging would actually be better translated as “condemning.” We shouldn’t presume to know the state of one’s soul. With that having been said, there are plenty of times when we are called to correct our brothers and sisters out of charity. This is one of the spiritual works of mercy after all. The trick is to be careful and make sure that if you’re going to try to help someone that you are really acting out of love…and then try to be thankful when the tables are turned.

Sometimes we try to pretend that death isn’t really all that bad. When a loved one dies we may try to reassure ourselves with the consolation that “they’re in a better place.” We may even think that we should feel happy for them. While it is true that death is not the end and that it is the doorway to eternal life, we should not be so quick to try to put a happy face on death. Death is not simply “a natural part of life” as we sometimes hear. St. Paul tells us that death came through sin. Death was not part of God’s plan. Death is our enemy. We have to understand death as our enemy to fully understand just how wonderful it is that Jesus has saved us. To be saved, you have to be saved from something, and that something is death, a real enemy.

In the light of our Christian faith and the knowledge of the victory won for us in Jesus, we can indeed have hope even in the face of death. Yet, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t still grieve. Death presents us with mixed emotions and that is as it should be. Today we mourn for the loss of the physical presence of our departed brothers and sisters and we pray for the repose of their souls. Yet, we mourn as those who have hope. We know that death is not the end. We know that life will be victorious.

Description to come…

In our first reading at Mass today, St. Paul shows clearly that he never saw himself as having given up being a Jew to be a Christian. Similarly, to be a good Christian today, you really have to understand our Jewish history. As Pope Pius XII once said, “Spiritually, we are all Semites.” In our Catholic liturgy, we continue pray for and revere our Jewish brothers and sisters as “the first to hear the word of God.” Jesus came to fulfill all the the law and prophets foretold, but God did not begin some radical new story with Jesus. Jesus come right in the middle of a story that God had been writing for a very long time. The New Testament is not so much a new story as the next chapter in a very old story.

In light of this, Christians should do all we can first to learn the story of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. Secondly, we should could continue to have great respect for the Jewish people. Sometimes, people wrongly try to blame “Jews” for killing Jesus. This is ridiculous. Not all Jews at the time of Jesus and certainly none of the Jews living today had anything to do with the death of Jesus. Jesus was killed because of our sins. There is no place for anti-Semitism among Christians.

Finally, in our modern world, it is important that we keep separate the religious notion of God’s chosen people Israel and the man-made political state of Israel. Too often, Christians are guilty of supporting the state of Israel in anything it does, no matter how unjust, in a false notion that somehow these are “God’s chosen people.” If it helps, consider that 75% of the “Jews” living in Israel don’t even believe in God yet alone practice their faith; they call themselves “secular Jews.” Then remember that all of the Christians in the Holy Land are Palestinians! While the United States might have good reason to support Israel politically, the religious reasons are far less solid.

St. Paul struggles to maintain both his Jewish and Christian identity. As Christians, we could do well to get in touch with our roots and realize our own Jewishness.

The theological virtue of hope is the virtue that causes us to desire heaven. St. Paul reminds us that no one hopes for something that he already has. Hope keeps us constantly looking forward toward the life to come. This is especially important when life is difficult and we might be tempted toward despair. This life is not all there is and thank God for that. Why do we often struggle so much with lack of hope, with a lack of desire for heaven. Pope Benedict observed in his second encyclical on hope that we often tend to think of heaven as merely a continuation of this present life going on forever. Who would hope for that! Heaven is infinitely greater than anything we can conceive of in this life. Let us ask God to give us an increase in the virtue of hope that we may have a great desire for heaven.

There is a lot of debate about the Sabbath in Scripture as we see in today’s readings. Today, we have almost lost the concept of the Sabbath rest. Why should we rest? Well, the point of the rest was always to remind us of why we work. If we continue to work every day and just do different kinds of work on Sunday, we will soon forget what the work is all about. We will come to think that the work that we do here on earth is our primary goal. Yet, our primary goal is really heaven. When we take a day off from work, we remind ourselves that this world is not what we are working for. This world is passing away. We work in this world with our eyes fixed on the world to come. The Sabbath rest should help us keep this balance right if we practice it faithfully.

After a long exile in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah brings good news to the Israelites in our first reading today. It’s was time to go back to the promised land! However, he says something very interesting. He says that they were going to be taking the blind, the lame, mothers and women pregnant with children along with them. The journey back to the holy land was a long a difficult one and it would have been tempting to leave the blind and the lame and pregnant women behind. After all, they would just slow everyone else down. God reminds the people that all of these people, especially these marginalized people, were part of his family. God would not allow anyone to be left behind, no matter how much of a “burden” people might have wrongly considered them to be.

A similar thing happens in our Gospel today. Notice where we find the blind man…on the side of the road. He is calling out and the people try to get him to be quiet. They just want him to stay in his place on the side of the road, on the margin. Jesus breaks in as is typical in the Gospel and shows that this blind man is part of his mission and part of his family. Jesus will not allow anyone to be marginalized from the family of God, especially not those who society considers not to have much value.

We continue to do the same things today. We tend to value people more for their use to us and what they can contribute to society. We fail to recognize the dignity of every human person that comes from their being created by God. How often do we hear a child conceived unexpectedly referred to as “unwanted” or a “burden” who is just getting in the way of someone else’s plans. We are currently hearing a lot about how old people at the end of their lives are costing us too much money for all their expensive health care. We make them feel that they are burdens and ask if maybe we couldn’t just leave them behind and “let them die” so we can more easily get on to where it is we think we need to be.

It’s not hard to imagine how Jesus feels about this. To show how important human dignity is, Jesus took on our own human nature. He became one of us and had a special care for those that society considered useless or burdensome. He continues to do so today. He asks the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” If Jesus, who is God, can have the humility to ask this question, then perhaps we too can find some people by the side of the road in our life and ask them the same question.

In our struggle to do good and avoid evil as we go through life, we can sometimes start to think that God is keeping track of all the bad we do in some kind of accounting system. We act as though the goal is to try to have enough good things in the book to balance out all the bad so that, hopefully in the end, everything comes close to zero. This we think will then earn us entrance into heaven. This creates a big problem. We’ve got to remember that God is not our accountant…he is our Father.

If we try to make everything “balance out” in life in a strict legalistic kind of way, we will never make it and we will be miserable. St. Paul reminds us that Jesus has won freedom for us. We are no longer slaves of the law and he reminds us that we need not live as slaves to our passions, what he calls “the flesh.” Rather we should live in the freedom of “the spirit.” The psalm from today best sums up the attitude we should have as we go through life in this freedom, “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.”

Heaven is not about accounting and reward, but about relationship. On earth we should live with a longing to be in relationship with God, to grow in love with God. If we live with this longing, even though we may not be perfect, we will get what we desire. We will see the face of God forever in heaven. That adds up pretty well in my book.

St. Wenceslas died a martyr in the early 10th century, being killed by his own brother. Wenceslas used his authority as king of Bohemia to ensure that the poor were taken care of. He also very openly practiced his Christian faith, even though this brought him into danger with pagan members of his court and even his own family. Eventually his strong Christian witness would cost him his life. His love for the poor is memorialized in the famous Christmas carol about him. Though written in the 19th century, the full song tells an appropriate story fitting to the life of the saint:

Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about
Deep and crisp and even
Brightly shone the moon that night
Though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight
Gath’ring winter fuel

“Hither, page, and stand by me
If thou know’st it, telling
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain
Right against the forest fence
By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh and bring me wine
Bring me pine logs hither
Thou and I will see him dine
When we bear him thither.”
Page and monarch forth they went
Forth they went together
Through the rude wind’s wild lament
And the bitter weather

“Sire, the night is darker now
And the wind blows stronger
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.”
“Mark my footsteps, my good page
Tread thou in them boldly
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod
Where the snow lay dinted
Heat was in the very sod
Which the Saint had printed
Therefore, Christian men, be sure
Wealth or rank possessing
Ye who now will bless the poor
Shall yourselves find blessing

Our first reading and gospel today recount unfortunate stories in which people are performing good works in the name of God and yet are looked down upon because they do not belong to the “correct group.” How often do we do this today as fellow Christians? There are two key points that Catholics especially must keep in mind. First, we should rejoice when we see our Christian brothers and sisters in other communities doing the works of God and loving Jesus. This is a good thing! Too often we look down on our separated brothers and sisters because they’re not “one of us.” This division is a scandal and not recognizing the good that exists even outside the visible bounds of the Catholic Church adds to the scandal.

However, secondly, we must also avoid falling into the trap of thinking that it doesn’t matter which church you happen to go to. Jesus really did found one Church and wants everyone to be a part of it. He really did give us leaders that he promised to guide and protect from error because he knew that was the only way we would be able to remain unified. He really did want us to have the Eucharist and the other Sacraments. He really does want everyone to be Catholic. While the Church does not have a monopoly on the truth, only the Catholic Church has everything that Jesus intended his Church to have, the “fullness” of the truth. It would be very offensive to Jesus to pretend that none of this really matters.

The challenge is to hold both of these points together at once, and to do it with love. The fact that as Catholics we have the fullness of truth doesn’t mean that we use it very well and it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot we can learn from our separated brothers and sisters. We should desire that everyone would be Catholic, but we should desire this from a knowledge that we love our brothers and sisters and want to share with them all the good things that Jesus wants them to have. There is no room for a triumphalist “I’m better than you” attitude in the Church. Let us thank God for the beautiful faith we see all around us, even outside the visible bounds of the Catholic Church, and let us work as Jesus prayed, “That all may be one.” Let us share the truth with love.

Matthew himself thought that he was an unlikely choice to be an apostle. Yet, the words of the first reading remind us that “Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.” Jesus chooses not those who seem most qualified in the eyes of the world. Rather, who gives his grace to those he chooses. He chose Matthew for a special mission and he has given each of us the grace we need for the special mission entrusted to us. May we have to courage to leave behind anything that would keep us from following Jesus on this mission.

Competition can be a good thing. St. Paul himself urges us to “compete well for the faith” and likens the whole of Christian life to the competition of a race. He reminds us that all compete for a single prize…”Run therefore so as to win!” Competition can indeed be a good thing when it causes us to strive to be the very best we can be. Yet, as is often the case, the devil can take what is good and twist it.

A good spirit of competition can degrade to the spirit of “jealousy and selfish ambition” spoken of by St. James in the today’s second reading. Instead of competing to be the very best we can be, how often to we instead try to bring others down? How often do we fall into the trap of thinking that putting someone else down somehow makes me higher? This is what is happening in our first reading today. Here we have a just man who is mocked and attacked all because he is trying to be holy and others don’t like it and try to tear him down. This is competition turned to jealousy and selfish ambition indeed.

We see this tendency in the corporate world too where getting ahead can often mean pushing back a bunch of others. In climbing the corporate ladder too often we see people not at all concerned about the people they are stepping on while trying to get to the top. All of this is summed up in one word, “use.” We can be guilty of using people for what they can do for us. We try to win friends and influence people by having the right friends that can get something for us.

As John Paul taught us, the opposite of love is not hate, but use. We should never use another person as a means to an end. To disrupt the cycle of jealousy and selfish ambition of our society we need love. This is exactly what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel. In the face of selfishness and a desire for power, Jesus gives self emptying. He who is on top of the power chain, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gives it all up. He uses his power to serve and wins with love.

The apostles obviously don’t understand and famously argue about who it the greatest. They are still stuck in the cycle of jealousy and selfish ambition. To disrupt this Jesus gives the example of a child. If you think about it, what advantage is a child in this scheme of using people to climb higher. You really don’t gain anything by having “influential friends” amongst 2nd graders. A child has nothing to offer your selfish ambition. Rather, a child must be served. This is how we should see people, someone to be served without jealousy or selfish ambition.

Today’s memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows reminds us that Mary shared intimately in every aspect of the life of Jesus. This means that she shared in many great joys, but it also means that she felt, more than anyone, the sorrows of his life. The Church has traditionally reflected on seven events in the life of Mary that have come to be called the “Seven Sorrows of Mary.”

• The prophecy of Simeon that a sword would pierce her heart
• The flight into Egypt
• The finding of the child Jesus in the temple
• Mary meets Jesus as he carries his cross
• Mary stands at the foot of the cross
• The body of Jesus is placed in Mary’s arms after being taken down from the cross
• The body of Jesus is placed in the tomb

We remember that to be close to Jesus means to share in both the joys and sufferings of his life. No one did this more perfectly than Mary. We ask her to help us to carry our cross well through the difficulties of life that we may share in her joy and the joy of all the saints as we one day behold Jesus face to face. May we always stay close to Jesus as Mary did.

In an interview published in The Washington Post, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said that as a Cabinet official she supported PresidentBarack Obama’s pledge not to make abortion funding part of health care legislation but did not give her own opinion on the subject. She also refused to say whether she is heeding Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann’s admonition not to receive Holy Communion, according to the interview transcript.

MS. ROMANO: You are pro-choice.

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: Yes.

MS. ROMANO: Do you think that the federal government should do some federal funding of abortions, personally?

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: Well, the President has made it pretty clear that Congress and the new health insurance plan will not provide federal funds for abortions.

Despite what the President may have said, multiple independent groups point out that the actual details of each of the bills that have been proposed all do in fact fund abortion. Further, every time an amendment has been proposed to specifically exclude abortion from the bill, those amendments have been voted down. So, while Sebelius can say that the President has “made it pretty clear,” if he really wanted to be clear he would state plainly that he will veto any bill that does not explicitly exclude abortion funding. In the end, that is really the only legislative power the President has; until he promises a veto he’s really not promising anything.

MS. ROMANO: Well, I know that. I was asking you what you thought.

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: I am the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and I will support the President’s proposal moving forward.

MS. ROMANO: You are also a pro-choice Catholic, and I was reading some stories out of your home state recently where one of the bishops took an action. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: Well, the Archbishop in the Kansas City area did not approve of my conduct as a public official and asked that I not present myself for communion.

It is not her conduct as a public official that gets her in trouble with the Church. It is her conduct as a Catholic who creates a public scandal to other Catholics that gets her in trouble.

MS. ROMANO: What did you think about that?

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: Well, it was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced in my life, and I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and I feel that my actions as a parishioner are different than my actions as a public official and that the people who elected me in Kansas had a right to expect me to uphold their rights and their beliefs even if they did not have the same religious beliefs that I had. And that’s what I did: I took an oath of office and I have taken an oath of office in this job and will uphold the law.

There are two key issues here. First, she uses the the excuse that public officials can behave immorally because they are just following orders. This is no different than if the leaders of Hitler’s Nazi party were to claim that they were personally opposed to slaughtering millions of innocent people but had taken an oath to separate this private belief from their public action. If the pro-abortion politicians of today can get away with the “just following orders” defense then we owe a huge apology to a lot of people we convicted of war crimes after WWII. An unjust law is no law at all. Further, the idea that Sebelius merely upheld the law is also false. She activelyvetoed pro-life legislation passed by both houses of congress duly elected to represent the will of the people to whom she claims she is beholden. Only 7% of the American people support abortion on demand as it is currently interpreted by our courts. Clearly it is not the will of the people that is being protected here.

Secondly, most dangerous is this attempt to turn abortion into a “religious” issue. Abortion has nothing to do with the “separation of Church and state” issue as Sebelius claims. Abortion is not merely a religious issue. This is an issue of civil rights. Can we continue to deny the rights of fellow members of the human race simply because of where they are located or what functions they are capable of performing? Any atheist can come to a logical conclusion that a baby growing inside its mother is a separate and unique human being that is alive. Every medical text book states this fact. The issue is whether we will continue to deny human rights to these human persons. That is a civil issue and separate from religion although religious people would no doubt fight for civil rights. 

MS. ROMANO: Do you continue to take communion?

SECRETARY SEBELIUS: I really would prefer not to discuss with you.That’s really a personal–thank you.

This weekend was a really exciting one for me. One of my many jobs as a priest is serving as the Scout Chaplain for the Archdiocese. I’ve been a scout for 23 years now and have always loved how the Catholic faith and scouting go together so nicely. When the Archbishop appointed me Chaplain for all the scouts I was very excited. I also had a few ideas.

One of those ideas was that I thought we should have an annual event that gathered all of the Catholic scouts together for a big campout. I thought maybe we could have a cooking competition, Mass, and maybe a Christian music concert. I went to the Catholic Committee on Scouting that existed at the time and told them my idea. I told them that I knew that there were wide open fields surrounding the headquarters of the Archdiocese and that I thought it would be great if we could fill those fields with tents and scouts. I think they thought I was crazy.

Eventually we agreed that it was possible, but I was told that events had been done in the past and that I could probably expect about 40 to 50 people. I was a little disappointed, but I thought we could start small and grow the event over the years. So we decided to do it.

I started praying a lot to the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t sure how techno savvy the Spirit is these days (have youever gotten a text message from the Holy Spirit? I’ve never even seen a Tweet from Him), so I also helped Him a little with some Facebook, Google, Web pages, and a lot of networking. The end result was that this small little event went big time really fast. We had over 300 scouts surrounding Savior of the World pastoral center. It didn’t occur to me until later, but if we had wanted to take over the Archdiocese, we actually had a pretty formidable army surrounding the place.

Fortunately for the Archbishop these scouts came not to invade, but to cook and have fun. We had beautiful weather and the day was everything I hoped it would be. Celebrating Mass that evening with all the scouts on the surrounding hill with the sun going down was just perfect. We then had an awesome concert by campfire light and I sat and tried to digest all the BBQ entries I had judged earlier in the day. Meanwhile the lights of scouts camped all around lit up the hill while Cub Scouts chased each other around with flashlights for no apparent reason.

The first annual Holy Smokes was a huge success. I might have had the idea, but it never could have happened without the support of many people, including our great new Scouting Chairman in the Archdiocese, Harold Bradley. Everyone that came said they had an awesome time and will be back next year along with more people. Maybe next year we’ll have a thousand! We better start planning now.

 Check out more pictures on our Facebook group

Jesus gives us many difficult examples in the Gospel today. “Turn the other cheek” best sums up all of them. He tells us when someone wrongs you, don’t try to get even. Not only are we not supposed to get even, but we’re actually supposed to give even more than the person has already unjustly taken. This is a hard teaching indeed. However, I think we tend to focus too much on the “what” of this teaching and miss the “why.” Jesus says that if we do these things, “Your reward will be great in heaven.” All of these difficult things Jesus asks are ultimately to remind us that we should live with our eyes fixed on the life to come.

Because we believe in life after death and that there is a heaven, we don’t have to “get even” in this life. We all long for a justice that ensures that everyone gets what’s coming to them. The difference for Christians is that we don’t have to get it here and now. If this world were all that existed then Jesus’ sayings make no sense. If there is not heaven then when someone wrongs you in this life then you’ve got to get back right here and now because that’s all there is.

Christianity and a “Christian world view” can be a great source of peace in the world. If everyone has to get even right here and now then we are doomed to endless war and violence. “An eye for an eye just makes the whole world blind.” Yet, if we as Christians are able to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile with our eyes fixed on a reward that comes later then we have a chance for peace. We still have to work for justice, but we as Christians work for justice in this world knowing that the true and lasting peace and justice we long for will only be experienced in the life to come.

In honor of the birthday of our Blessed Mother today and the upcoming birthday of the famous Matty Molnar, I thought this video to be a fitting tribute. This video was recorded live at the Mundelein Seminary coffee house night on May 5th, 2005. Matty was tragically killed in a car accident the following September 15th, so I believe that this video represents the last public performance of this famous song that Matty wrote in honor of Mary.

For some reason the camera wanted to focus on me way too much, but at any rate, that’s me singing off key on backup vocals (if you can call it that), former seminarian and now holy husband and man of God Ben Beier on drums, and Fr. Tien Tran on bass. This was a great night at the seminary. I’ll try to post some more videos of the event if people are interested.

Here’s to the Blessed Mother and Matty. Happy Birthday to you both.

We all know that Jesus performed many healings in his public ministry, most of which were not recorded anywhere. Why then, among all these, did St. Mark choose to tell us about the healing of the deaf and mute man in the Gospel today? For one thing, the Greek word for “mute” is used in only two places in all of Scripture, in the Gospel and in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah tells us that when the Messiah comes he will restore sight to the blind, restore hearing to the deaf, and the “mute” will sing. Mark is clearly telling us that Jesus fulfills this passage and is the Messiah.

However, both St. Mark and the early Church often made use of this healing for another reason. It is a symbolic model of the process of evangelization, or spreading the “good news” about Jesus. The apostles heard the Word of God and then went out and spoke about it to everyone. These people heard the apostles preaching and they in turn went and spoke about it to all their friends. Eventually the good news reached the entire world.

Today, however, we are in danger of losing the faith that the apostles gave their lives to hand on. Many people are abandoning the faith. For this reason, John Paul II called us to what he termed a “New Evangelization.” We’ve got to start this process of hearing and speaking all over again. When we hear the term “New Evangelization” we might immediately think about going out and speaking more about the faith. This is backward. The reason we are not speaking the Word of God well is because we are not hearing it well.

It is common that when a man goes deaf he will ultimately develop a speech impediment because he can’t hear. The Church is suffering from a sort of spiritual speech impediment and the cure can only come from learning the hear again. Jesus first heals the man’s hearing and then frees his tongue. The same will be true for the New Evangelization. The Good News is that God so loved the world that he sent his only son that we might have life. That’s really great news, but most of us are not “hearing” it and hence are not sharing it.

In order to heal the deaf and mute man in the Gospel, Jesus had to take him away from the crowd. Maybe God is calling you to come away, to leave what is comfortable so that he can help you to hear the Good News. Jesus could have just willed that the man be healed, but instead he touched him. He put his fingers in his ears and spit on his tongue. He then spoke a seemingly magic word…ephphatha. It means “be open” in Jesus’ native Aramaic. Jesus wants to touch each of us as well and allow us to hear clearly so that we may speak clearly. What next step is God asking you to take? Whatever it is, hear Jesus saying ephphatha…that is…be open.

In today’s Gospel the Pharisees criticize the apostles for picking heads of grain and eating them on the Sabbath. Jesus responds by reminding them of the time that the army of Israel violated the law by eating the bread of the temple that only the priests could eat. What do these stories have in common? In the story of the army eating the temple bread, Jesus reminds them that it was King David himself who led this supposed violation of the law. You can imagine that if some general of the army had showed up at the temple with such a request that he probably wouldn’t have gotten very far. Yet, when the king shows up…well who is going to say no to the king?

Obviously, it makes a difference who you are with. David had authority over the laws of the temple and could allow the men who were with him to eat the sacred bread. In just the same way, Jesus claims that he is “lord of the Sabbath” and has the authority to allow the men who are with him to “harvest” grain on the Sabbath. This is an amazing claim if you think about it.

If we remember back to yesterdays’ Gospel, the Pharisees wanted to know why the disciples of Jesus didn’t fast. He replied that they were “with the bridegroom” and thus it was not the time for fasting. Today, Jesus reminds us of the special privileges of those who were “with King David” and, most significantly, the special privileges of those who are “with him.” Do we realize that we too are “with Jesus?” We are his special friends. This allows us the freedom not to arbitrarily violate the Sabbath, but rather to live out what the Sabbath was always meant to be about. We get to spend time resting “with Jesus.”

We often hear that “God is love.” Yet, this can be a hard thing to understand in the abstract. Love is a concrete thing manifested by tangible actions. Until the time of Jesus, God revealed himself through sacred words and deeds in history. Yet, the greatest revelation of God was when he became one of us and came in person to show us how much he loves us. St. Paul tells us in the 1st reading this morning that Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” If we want to know what God’s love is like, we just look at Jesus and see the way he loved people. Since Jesus is God he shows each of us in person the perfect image of the love of God. The call to us as Christians is that we too are called to be an image of the love of God to our neighbor. How well do we reflect the love of God to others in our daily lives?

What happens to extra embryos after IVF?

The article concerns the moral struggle that people find themselves in after having conceived using in vitro fertilization (IVF). Not surprisingly, when we choose to violate God’s laws there are unintended consequences. Such consequences of IVF include hundreds of thousands of babies frozen in laboratory freezers indefinitely. In order to achieve one successful pregnancy using IVF, multiple eggs are fertilized, leaving “extra” children, sadly referred to as “left overs” in the article.

Many good people who struggle with infertility can fall into the lure of IVF if they are not made aware of the serious evil of this process. They then realize the moral problem they’ve created when they have these “extra” children that require a decision as to their fate. The article is about this struggle and some possible options. It really shouldn’t be so surprising that we find life seeming less and less special, or dare we say “sacred,” when we now have so many people who are mere “left overs.”

See the Pope Paul VI Institute and their site on NaProTechnology for fertility care information and morally positive alternatives to IVF.

Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care Reform

One of the key issues addressed is a principle of Catholic social justice teaching known as the principle of subsidiarity.

The statement summarizes as follows:

“Subsidiarity is that principle by which we respect the inherent dignity and freedom of the individual by never doing for others what they can do for themselves and thus enabling individuals to have the most possible discretion in the affairs of their lives. (See: Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, ## 185ff.; Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1883) The writings of recent Popes have warned that the neglect of subsidiarity can lead to an excessive centralization of human services, which in turn leads to excessive costs, and loss of personal responsibility and quality of care.”

The Catholic social justice principle of respect for the dignity of each human person rightly causes us to advocate for health care for all, as our bishops strongly support. However, the principle of subsidiarity not only allows but even encourages us to be very afraid of the idea of the government running our health care system. The entire Catholic hospital system was established under the principle of subsidiarity. Individual people and communities see a need and do something about it. You don’t wait for or expect that someone else, especially the government, will come in and do it for you.

Today, we not only expect that the government will fix all our problems, but we have the sad delusion that somehow only the government could really do the best job. It is too often the case that we have lost a sense of solidarity and community with those around us and no longer take personal responsibility for ourselves, yet alone our neighbor. We need health care reform, but more than that we need reform in personal responsibility.

There is no magic government money tree to fund stimulus packages, bailouts, cash for clunkers, or any other spending program. The government has no money; it has only your money and my money. Further, the government has no power other than what has been entrusted to it by the people through the constitution. The founding fathers were terrified of a large central government. Partly, they had pride in taking care of themselves and didn’t want to be dependent on anyone else. More importantly, they knew from experience that power ultimately corrupts. At best, they didn’t want some big central bureaucracy making decisions for them that were better made closer to home. Thus we find the principle of subsidiarity in the framework of our government.

Nowhere in constitution did we ever give the government the power to take over the health care industry. We all need to look for solutions to how we can have affordable health care for all, but the government is not the answer. You and I are the answer. That is the principle of subsidiarity.

This past weekend’s funeral Mass for Sen. Edward Kennedy has been the cause of scandal for many people, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

Many question whether or not Sen. Kennedy should have been given the “honor” of a Catholic funeral. Given that no lawmaker ever did more to champion the cause of abortion on demand than Sen. Kennedy, it is understandable that people would be concerned that he would not be eligible for a Catholic funeral. If he had not repented from his position this would in fact be the case. However, the Church allows that, if one repents at the end of one’s life, he or she is entitled to Christian burial. It appears that Sen. Kennedy did call for a priest at the end of his life and did receive the sacraments. While this is certainly not the public repentance demanded by the very public sins of his life, the Church is very lenient and errs on the side of mercy if there exists even minimal evidence of “repentance.” I therefore concur with notable canon lawyer Ed Peters that Sen. Kennedy was entitled to a Catholic funeral Mass (go here for detailed information why).

That having been said, I do believe that the funeral Mass was a huge scandal. The reason the Church is lenient in allowing Christian burial for even minimally repentant public sinners is precisely because the central purpose of the funeral Mass is to implore God’s mercy for the deceased. To a point, you could say the bigger the sinner, the more appropriate a funeral Mass would be. Having a funeral Mass is in not intended to “honor” the person. The sadness of this particular funeral was that someone who very much needed our prayers instead received only praise. Tragically, the uncharitable pretended ignorance of the man’s grave sins cost him the one thing that could have really helped him, the potential prayers of thousands.

Perhaps the most serious scandal of this funeral Mass was that all this praise being heaped upon Sen. Kennedy was really not for him at all. The real purpose of so much show and ceremony was to provide reassurance to all those Catholics who, like Kennedy, reject the teaching authority of the Church. Can you still be a “good Catholic” and be in favor of abortion? Apparently. To the average person, here was “the Church” heaping countless praises upon the champion of abortion, homosexual activity, and scores of other moral outrages that the Church is supposedly against. What clearer teaching could there be? Actions speak louder than words.

Again, I am not saying that there shouldn’t have been a funeral Mass. I even think it should have been every bit as big and public as it was. I just wish it would have actually been a Catholic funeral Mass. What took place in Boston this weekend was a secular funeral shoved into a Catholic church. I actually hoped that the Cardinal would in fact preach and would use well the “teachable moment.” So many so-called Catholic politicians are leading lives in the same disastrous state as Sen. Kennedy. Here was a perfect opportunity to truly exercise the “care of souls” in an urgently needed way. Instead, more fuel was added to the already blazing scandal of Catholics in political life.

Might I suggest that much of the scandal of this weekend would have been avoided if an actual Catholic funeral Mass would have been celebrated according to the instructions for such a Mass. As I said, the central focus of the Mass is to pray for mercy upon the deceased. This is done with time-honored prayers and chants. The one thing that is not at all characteristic of a Catholic funeral is a speech. The Mass is for prayer, not making speeches, eulogies, remembrances, or whatever else you want to throw in. The instructions for the funeral Mass are clear:

“At the funeral Mass there should, as a rule, be a short homily, but never a eulogy of any kind.” (General Instruction of the Roman Missal #382)

Why were there not just one, but three eulogies at this so-called “funeral Mass?” Why were the General Intercessions perverted into political statements quoted from political speeches? The list of abuses goes on and on. If you just follow the instructions for Mass, most of what took place this weekend would not have happened.

The ancient counsel of the Church is evident here; lex orandi, lex credendi- the way we pray reflects and shapes what we believe. The manner of prayer this weekend (if you could call it prayer) clearly states that we believe that the good deeds done in life are sufficient to outweigh any sins, no matter how great and, most tragically, that the dead do not need our prayers. That is obviously what the people assembled in Boston believed as evidenced by how they prayed. The final scandal is to think about how people might have been helped to believe correctly if they had just prayed correctly.

May the soul of Edward Kennedy and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Perhaps you’ve heard various Protestant groups refer to something they call “The Rapture.” It can all be rather confusing as they speak of hoping to be “raptured” away from this life and speeded away to heaven. Catholics naturally back away from this idea of “rapture” because it doesn’t sound like anything Jesus every talked about nor anything the Fathers of the Church mentioned. While most of the Protestant understanding of rapture is based on misreading the Bible, there is a biblical idea of rapture.

In the first reading today, St. Paul speaks of the final judgement and the last day at the end of time. All those who have died will of course rise from the dead. But what about those who are still alive at the second coming? These, St. Paul says, will be “caught up” (in Greek…”raptured”) to meet Jesus in the air. So, yes, Catholics believe in a rapture. The problem is that the Protestant notion takes this idea and combines it with the teaching in Revelation that there will be a “thousand year” period of “tribulation” before the end of the world.

The Protestant belief is that those who are “good” should not have to undergo this tribulation and thus will be “raptured” out of the world ahead of time. Obviously this is not scriptural and denies a key part of Christianity. “In the world you will have tribulation, but have courage, for I have overcome the world.” Jesus is not going to save us from this world by preventing our suffering. Rather he gives meaning to our suffering. If we fight the good fight through this life as St. Paul did, then we will indeed be with Jesus on the last day. That will be a truly, and biblically sound, rapturous day.

We often think of a prophet as someone who foretells the future. Yet, the primary job of a prophet is to speak not about the future, but about what is going on right now. The prophet stands in the midst of the present situation and is able to see things with God’s eyes and boldly speak out, “Thus says the Lord!”

The truth is that we really don’t like prophets very much. We tend to want to settle into a pattern of life that is comfortable and little by little we compromise with the societal forces around us. It’s easy to just keep on going this way, like the proverbial frog in the pot as the water keeps getting hotter and hotter. The prophet is the one who breaks in and disrupts this status quo.

John the Baptist was called “The greatest of all prophets” by Our Lord. It was finally his preaching against divorce and remarriage that led to his execution which we commemorate today. As the temperature in the pot continues to rise all around us today, we could use a few good prophets like St. John the Baptist. We are kind of in comfort mode right now, compromising our prophetic role for the sake of “political correctness” or mistaken ideas of being “pastoral.” Are there some prophets out there who are willing to stand up and call us to jump out of the pot?

Today we celebrate a saint that had perhaps the most famous conversion in the history of the Church. Yet, there were many other people that helped St. Augustine to finally turn back to God. First, his mother, Monica, raised him well and taught him the faith from an early age. Second, in adulthood St. Augustine needed another teacher who could help his adult mind to come to a deeper insight into the faith. Augustine found this kind of teacher in St. Ambrose who was instrumental in his conversion. Finally, the thing most responsible for this famous conversion was grace. Augustine went on to to write so much on God’s free gift of grace. It is a gift that Augustine knew well in his own life and is God’s gift to all of us.

[The following homily was given at the opening all-school Mass at Hayden High School in Topeka. It represents a summary of three talks given the they Hayden faculty retreat on August 10th. Those talks can be found at the following links:]

http://www.shawnthebaptist.org/2009/08/hayden-faculty-retreat-2009-talk-1/
http://www.shawnthebaptist.org/2009/08/hayden-faculty-retreat-2009-talk-2/
http://www.shawnthebaptist.org/2009/08/hayden-faculty-retreat-2009-talk-3/

This summer we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the first landing of man on the moon. As we recall this event, there are 3 lessons that provide helpful insights as we begin a new school year. First, the entire mission to the moon would have never happened without the vision and leadership of President John F. Kennedy. He set the goal of landing on the moon by the end of 1969 and this goal gave direction to every decision made. We too need to have clear goals. We will never arrive at where we need to be if we don’t have a clear picture of where we’re going.

Secondly, we shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes. It took many many failures along the path that eventually led to the lunar landing. The rocket scientists had to watch rocket after rocket explode right in front of them in a great ball of fire. Yet, they learned from their mistakes and didn’t quit. How many times do we give up because we fail? Perhaps our biggest failure is that we never set challenging goals because we’re too afraid we might not reach them. Kennedy’s goal was a very challenging one and lots of people could have given up but didn’t. We need to have the courage to “fail well” as we risk achieving great things.

Finally, there is an important lesson to be learned from the mission of Apollo 8. This was the first time we ever flew away from the earth and went to the moon. We didn’t land of course, but we discovered something very important. The astronauts had trained very hard to learn everything they could about the moon. They had planned every moment of their trip with countless checklists, including every picture they would take. However, they found themselves completely unprepared for the surprise that awaited them when they got to the moon. As they came around the dark side of the moon and into daylight they saw something unexpected…the earth. They had to scramble to find their cameras to take the unexpected prize pictures. Astronaut Bill Anders remarked that they had concentrated all their training on learning about the moon and yet, when they got there, the most important thing they discovered was the earth. In the midst of all our plans and goals, don’t be surprised if God gets in there and throws in a few unexpected wrinkles. This is good. There are lots of things to learn this year, but don’t be surprised if along the way you learn a few things you hadn’t planned on…and those just might turn out to be the most important.

The Apostle Bartholomew is believed to be the same Apostle also called Nathaniel. Today’s gospel speaks of how Philip brought Nathaniel to Jesus just as we all need to bring others to know Jesus. Nathaniel has a powerful encounter with Jesus that leads to him becoming one of The Twelve. Perhaps Nathaniel was feeling down and wondering if God heard his prayers. “Do you see me?” he might have prayed. Jesus says “Before Philip called you, I saw you.” He sees each of us as well. We don’t really know much about St. Bartholomew, but maybe this in itself is a good lesson. You don’t have to do extraordinary deeds and be written about in the history books in order to be holy. Bartholomew was a “true child of Israel” and a true follower of Jesus. May the same be said for all of us.

We are so blessed in this country to have many choices. We have the freedom to choose everything from where we worship, where we live, and even what we eat. Yet, all these choices can lead us to a sort of paralysis of decision. What should I choose? We are experiencing in our society what might be called a crisis of commitment. Some people think that maintaining our freedom means “keeping all our options open.” However, you probably can’t think of anyone whom you admire who is famous for “keeping all their options open” and going through life without committing to anything. Rather it is precisely our commitments in life that define who were are.

Our readings this weekend are all about these two things: choices and commitment. In the first reading, Joshua and the Israelites boldly choose to worship the true God. In our second reading, St. Paul reminds us of the beautiful commitment expressed in marriage. Husband and wife joyfully commit to each other in marriage and thus become “subordinate,” ordered to each other, or “submissive,” under a common mission. Does such a commitment close the door on some options…yes, but the result is not a lessening of freedom, but the finding of a new and greater freedom. Once you are in your vocation there is a great freedom knowing where your life is going and with whom.

In the Gospel, Jesus asks for a commitment of his disciples. He gives them the choice of accepting his teaching or parting ways. Sadly, St. John tells us that many of Jesus’ disciples left him. We might think that perhaps there was a misunderstanding, but then Jesus turns to the apostles and is willing to let them go too if they can’t commit to what he is asking. What could be so important that Jesus would allow everyone to leave if they can’t accept it? It’s the Eucharist! Jesus has just told his disciples that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have eternal life. Those who were there understood Jesus literally and Jesus made it plain to them that he was not speaking symbolically. Thus many leave rather than trust in his words. The Eucharist is the sacred sign of total commitment to Jesus and of being his follower.

Today Jesus requires no less of a commitment from us if we are going to receive him in the Eucharist. St. Paul uses the image of marriage to describe the love that should exist between us and Jesus. Just as you can’t get married half way or choose only certain things of your spouse that you will marry, so you can’t take only part of what Jesus teaches and still be a member of his Church. Jesus wants a total commitment from us, a commitment that is expressed in our eating his body and drinking his blood in the Most Holy Eucharist. This is where we become one flesh with Jesus in the marriage banquet celebrated at every Mass. Today we renew the wedding vows made to God in Holy Baptism and are then invited to share in the wedding supper of the lamb. What a beautiful choice.

Today and tomorrow our first readings are taken from the Old Testament book of Ruth. This short book tells the story of a very important person in God’s plan of salvation. Every year during Advent we read what seems to be that rather long and boring geneology of Jesus. “So and so begat so and so” and on and on and on until we are finally relieved to arrive at Jesus. In St. Matthew’s geneology it is of particular importance that he includes several women in the list. This would not have been expected and the women he includes are equally unexpected. Ruth is one of those women.

The inclusion of Ruth in God’s plan of slavation is interesting because Ruth is not even an Israelite. She is of the clan of Moab. However, through God’s providence she ends up converting to the faith of Israel and marries Boaz of Bethlehem. Together they have a son named Obed who then becomes the father of Jesse who is of course the father of King David. God has always worked in the unexpected and we shouldn’t be surprised to find that true in our own lives. God took a poor Moabite girl and made her the great grandmother of the most famous king in the history of Israel. Imagine what God might be doing with the unexpected events in your life!

The classic 1954 movie “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando has a scene that is very similar to today’s gospel. All the longshoremen show up at the docks in the morning hoping to get work. The foreman comes out and picks from all those present. Some are chosen for work that day and others have to go home perhaps with no food with which to feed their families, hoping to try again tomorrow. The landowner in the gospel does something strange though. He keeps going back to get more workers. It doesn’t seem that he needs them, but he just can’t bear the thought of them going home with nothing. This is a great image for God. He keeps calling us. It doesn’t matter how early or late we get called; we just need to go.

Notice also the fiasco at the end of the day. The workers that were chosen first should be happy that they had work that day. Instead they start to look around at what others get and they become angry. The lesson here is that we need to stop comparing ourselves with others. How often do we find ourselves content with life and then we get distracted by trying to “keep up with the Jones’?” We often lose the happiness we should have from our unique call from God by comparing ourselves with others. If you find yourself thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, maybe it’s time to start watering your own lawn.

A Eucharistic miracle similar to the one I described in Lanciano apparently took place in Buenos Aires in the 1990’s. I mentioned that there have been many other miracles like Lanciano over the years, so I wasn’t particularly surprised to hear of one in Buenos Aires. What struck me about this particular presentation were some key similarities between the known miracle in Lanciano and this new one in Argentina.

Apparently a consecrated host began to show signs of a sort of bleeding. The doctor indicates that he gave a sample to be tested by multiple independent doctors who didn’t know where the sample came from. They each reported the same conclusion, that the sample was from a human heart. Additionally, they also reported that the tissue showed the strange sign of responding as living tissue and was actually beating.

I was of course noticing that all of this sounded very similar to what was found with the Lanciano miracle. The speaker then goes on to mention the Lanciano miracle and he too notes the similarities. Then he says something that really made me stop for a second. I don’t fully get the details from the video, but apparently he was able to compare his results with the results of the doctor who did the Lanciano investigation and they were able to determine from the DNA that the samples from Lanciano from 750 and from Argentina in 1996 are from the same person!

I always knew that the blood type of the Lanciano sample was found to be AB and that this matched the blood type from the blood on the famous Shroud of Turin, also AB. However, being able to link this miracle in Buenos Aires to Lanciano as being not just the same blood type but matching DNA of the same person…well that’s really something now. Does anyone have more info on this connection or more official scientific results? The video is certainly worth a watch and I’d like to find out more myself.

Watch the Video

One of Many Websites with Info on Lanciano

One of the things we Americans love most is our freedom and our ability to make choices. Yet, sometimes having to make choices can be very difficult. The rich young man in yesterday’s gospel is given the special call to leave everything an follow Jesus and yet he chooses to hang on to his worldly possessions instead. What a tragic choice. Jesus tells us in today’s gospel that it is very hard for a rich man to enter heaven. In some ways, being poor can have advantages. If you don’t have money, you don’t even have the option of buying a bunch of stuff.

For those of us that live somewhere in between poverty and riches, our lives are much more complicated. Should I buy that TV or give some money to the Church? The ultimate lesson from the gospel over the last two days is not that material possessions are bad and that rich people don’t go to heaven. Rather, we need to have the right balance and know what is really important. The question is, are we detached enough to recognize when something is more important than material wealth? Is there anything in this world that is keeping us from having our eyes fixed on the world to come? May God teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and to love the things of heaven.

When the Israelites finally enter the promised land, their mission was to be an example to the pagan people they encounter (or else, in some scriptures, kill them all less they become a temptation). They are supposed to show them the worship of the true God. However, they soon give in to the temptation that keeps so many from achieving the greatness to which they are called; they decide that it is easier to just be like everyone else. They start worshiping false gods and sacrificing even their children to idols. They give up their identity as God’s chosen people to be just ordinary.

This is one of the greatest temptations that afflicts the Church to this day. Not long ago, you could tell who was Catholic apart from the rest. We had a unique identity. Now, in so many ways, Catholics are “just like every body else.” Abortion, contraception, divorce…Catholics are almost indistinguishable now from the general population. We’ve given up our special mission to be salt and light and to convert the world and have instead allowed the world to convert us. The rich young man in the gospel today is given the special call to follow Jesus if he will only detach himself from the worldly ways represented by his possessions. Unfortunately, he says no to Jesus’ invitation and goes away sad. Will we continue to try to be just ordinary, like everyone else? What will be our answer to Jesus’ invitation?

In today’s gospel, Jesus commands us to eat his body and drink his blood. He tells us that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. This seems to be such a strange teaching. We often ask, as those in the gospel did, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Perhaps a better question to consider first is, “Why would Jesus give us his flesh to eat?” Jesus tells us in the gospel that he wants to “remain” in us and wants us to “remain” in him. Jesus wants to be as close to us as possible! It is important to remember that we are not purely spiritual beings, but rather we are body and soul. We experience the world through our bodies as part of who we are. If Jesus wants to remain with us, he can’t do this in some purely spiritual and abstract way. Rather he remains with us in a way that is tangible to our body and our soul. If Jesus wants to be as close to us as possible, what could be closer than the very food we eat that becomes part of us?

This is why Jesus gives us his flesh to eat, but the question “how?” remains a difficult one. It is indeed a mystery, yet we need some language to talk about it. The Church has found use in the philosophical term “transubstantiation.” Simply put, it means that the appearances of bread and wine, the “accidents”, remain but the thing itself, the “substance”, is changed into the body and blood of Christ. If that helps…great, but you don’t have to be a philosopher to understand the Eucharist. Before the consecration we have normal bread and wine on the altar. When the priest in the name of Jesus says “This is my body” and “This is my blood” we now have the body and blood of Christ really present. Only the appearances of bread and wine remain. It is a great mystery, but ultimately we believe it because Jesus said it and we trust him. He loves us so much that he wants to be as close to us possible, even becoming our very food. Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

[This homily was given at the archdiocesan Pro-Life Mass held each month at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in Kansas City, KS]

After the tragedy of World War II, many people were rightly shaken by the images taken upon the liberation of the concentration camps. Pictures of piles of human corpses and mass graves led many to despair and question, “Is this all the human body is really worth?” It was in view of this that Pope Pius XII asked the world’s bishops if they felt that the time was opportune to proclaim solemnly the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. While the Church had always believed this truth of the faith from the earliest days, in 1950 this dogma was offered to the world to reassure us of the dignity of the body. Mary was taken, body and soul, into heaven as a foreshadowing of the truth that all of us will one day raised from the dead, body and soul.

The modern tragedy of abortion has once again filled our world with piles of bodies and people are tempted to despair and question, “Is this all a person is, just a bunch of insignificant tissue to be thrown away?” Mary’s assumption assures us today as it did the world in 1950 that the body is sacred. One could hardly ask for a better Pro-Life Gospel than the Gospel of today’s Mass. The pre-born John the Baptist leaps in the womb of Elizabeth has be encounters the person of Jesus, also pre-born in his mother Mary. How could any Christian claim that babies in their mothers’ wombs are not people! We invoke Mary’s intercession today to pray for a greater respect for all human life and a renewed awe that our bodies are holy and destined for heaven.

The antiphon for today’s psalm exclaims, “Blessed be God who filled my soul with fire!” We often used this image of fire to describe the presence and love of God. Jesus tells us that he came to set the world on fire. The Holy Spirit came in tongues of flame at Pentecost. In today’s first reading we see the the eyes of Moses remained undimmed at the age of 120, still filled with the fire of so many face to face encounters with God. While fires can sometimes be large and rage out of control, the fire that is the presence of God within us is much more like a small watch fire. A small fire has to be carefully tended and little sticks have to be added frequently to feed it. That’s a good image for the spiritual life in all of us. We have to carefully tend this gift of God’s presence and feed it often. St. Jane Frances de Chantal knew this is and is a beautiful example of tending carefully the spiritual life. May we all be diligent in keeping the flame of God’s love alive in our hearts.

Talk 3

How?

“Today, they’re shocked when the shuttle doesn’t work every time, but they were always surprised when the Saturn V did.”
- Neil Armstrong

“Each of the components of our hardware were designed to certain reliability specifications, and far the majority, to my recollection, had a reliability requirement of 0.99996, which means that you have four failures in 100,000 operations. I’ve been told that if every component met its reliability specification precisely, that a typical Apollo flight would have about [1,000] separate identifiable failures. In fact, we had more like 150 failures per flight, better than statistical methods would tell you that you might have. I can only attribute that to the fact that every guy in the project, every guy at the bench building something, every assembler, every inspector, every guy that’s setting up the tests, cranking the torque wrench, and so on, is saying, man or woman, ‘If anything goes wrong here, it’s not going to be my fault, because my part is going to be better than I have to make it.’ …And that’s the only reason we could have pulled this whole thing off.”
- Neil Armstrong

“I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.”
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

“We stretch ourselves, and what we learn yields broad benefits.”
- Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator

“A man came up to Jesus, knelt down before him, and said, ‘Lord, have pity on my son, who is a lunatic and suffers severely; often he falls into fire, and often into water.’”
- Matthew 17:14

Closing Thoughts

The journey to heaven is even more exciting than the journey to the moon. We need leaders who know where we’re going to inspire us. How well do you know God’s story? Are you prepared for the challenge?

The crew of Apollo 8 expected to find the moon. Instead they found the earth and, ultimately, God. Can you help your students to find God where they weren’t looking?

400,000 people worked on the Apollo program to make “one small step” possible. Do you recognize the importance of your role? Will you do your part?

Talk 2

Why?

The four “causes” of Aristotle
Material – what’s it made out of?
Formal – what is it?
Efficient – who made it?
Final – why?

“After all the training and studying we’d done as pilots and engineers to get to the moon safely and get back, and as human beings to explore moon orbit, what we really discovered was the planet Earth.”
- Bill Anders, Apollo 8 Astronaut

On Christmas Eve 1968 the crew of Apollo 8 was scheduled to do a live television broadcast from the moon. It would be watched by the largest television audience in history at that time. Mission Control reminded the crew of this fact and admonished them, “You better think of something good to say.” They chose to read the first 10 verses of the Book of Genesis. Over 2 billion people, more than half of all people alive at the time watched.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

And God said, d“Let there be an expanse1 in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

“A merry Christmas and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
- Frank Borman, Apollo 8 Astronaut

“Why do you ask how you were created and do not seek to know why you were made? Was not this entire visible universe made for your dwelling? It was for you that the light dispelled the overshadowing gloom; for your sake was the night regulated and the day measured, and for you were the heavens embellished with the varying brilliance of the sun, the moon and the stars.”
- St. Peter Chrysologus

“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place— What is man that you are mindful of him, mortal men that you care for them? Yet you have made him little less than a god, crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field,the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatever swims the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!
- Psalm 8:4-10

Talk 1

Where?

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
- John F. Kennedy, Speech to Congress, 1961

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”
- John F. Kennedy, Rice University, 1962

“What is the purpose of a newborn baby?”
- Werner von Braun, Rocket Scientist

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.”
- God , Jeremiah 1:5

“They told Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan.” Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, “We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us.” So they spread discouraging reports among the Israelites about the land they had scouted.”
- Numbers 13:27-32

“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.”
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

“We’re on a mission from God.”
- Elwood Blues

The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel can sound harsh as he tells us, “Whoever hates is life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Jesus is reminding us to have our priorities straight and to know where we are going. When you consider eternal life in heaven, it is true that this life pales in comparison. St. Lawrence knew his goal was heaven. This faith allowed him to courageously surrender his life in this world rather than risk losing eternal life in heaven. St. Paul reminds us today that “God loves a cheerful giver.” St. Lawrence showed this cheerfulness right to the end as it is told that while he was being martyred by being grilled to death he cheerfully told his torturers, “You can turn me over now; I’m done on this side.” May we, like St. Lawrence, always be mindful of our ultimate destination and thus cheerfully live out our days on earth, whatever challenges might come.

The story of the early Church is filled withthe tales of the apostles going out and spreading the faith all over the world. Little by little, the faithspreads and even entire lands become “Christian.” Unfortunately, things don’t stay this way forever. Over times, the lands once famously converted by St. Paul fell away from the faith, came back again, and fell away again, over and over. Despite the initial evangelization of a culture, it is all too common that heresy gradually creeps in and soon the faith is lost. A “new evangelization” is then needed to go and plant to seeds of faith once again. St. Dominic encountered this problem in southern France in the 13th century. He was saddened that people did not know their faith and so had gradually fallen into heresy. He founded a special Order of Preachers, the “Dominicans,” to help teach people the truths of their faith. Mary appeared to him bringing the gift of the Rosary to aid in his task. Today we find ourselves in similar circumstances as St. Dominic. Once again people don’t know their faith and thus are falling away. For this reason the Pope has called for a “New Evangelization.” This isn’t the first new evangelization and it won’t be the last. With the prayers of St. Dominic and Our Lady, we know that we will be successful.

Jesus gave Peter, James, and John a great gift on Mt. Tabor. For a brief moment, they saw the divinity of Jesus as clearly as any human eye can on this earth. We might wonder why Jesus didn’t reveal himself this clearly to everyone. He reserved this special moment not even for the 12 apostles, but only a chosen 3. Ultimately, the lesson is that God has never acted in such a way as to force himself upon our intellect or compel our will. In heaven we will have that beautiful Mt. Tabor experience permanently, but here on earth we are still on the way. Peter wants to stay on the mountain as well all would, but this vision is given not that Peter, James, and John might stop and stay. Rather the vision is given to strengthen them for the struggle of the cross that lies ahead. We too have moments in our life where we see God clearly, and they do often seem few and far between. We take courage as we look to the joy of beholding Jesus face to face permanently in heaven, but for now we treasure these transfiguration moments in our lives, these glimpses of God that keep us going.

The Council of Ephesus in the year 431 officially affirmed what the Church had always believed, that Mary is rightly called Theotokos or “Mother of God.” There was great celebration in the city of Ephesus and in Rome a certain nobleman decided to give his entire estate to the building of a grand church in honor of the Mother of God. When deciding where to build the church, it was revealed in a vision that the church should be built on the hill where snow would fall on the following day, August 5th. Despite being the middle of summer, the following day found the Esquiline hill covered in snow and the Basilica of St. Mary Major was built on this site. Today’s feast is thus also known as Our Lady of the Snows. Over the centuries the people of Rome have come to this church to implore the intercession of Our Lady in times of difficulty. We have no greater intercessor among the saints than the Mother of God, for she is also our mother.

When Peter sees Jesus walking on the sea, he briefly forgets all the trouble they are in on account of the storm. Instead, he is consumed with one thought; he wants to do what Jesus does. He goes out on the sea to meet Jesus, but more importantly, to be like Jesus. This is our call as Christians, to become “another Christ.” St. John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, did this so well that when someone asked a lawyer returning from Ars what he had seen there he replied, “I saw God in a man.” May we live our lives in such a way that people see Christ in us.

I decided if I was going to move, I’d go all out. So, I registered this new snazzy domain (Shawn is the Irish version of John and I take John the Baptist as my principal patron saint) and got my self-hosted WordPress site all up and running…including the much demanded homily podcast. As you can see, I still have only the very basic standard WordPress theme and have much work to do. I’m debating about migrating over all the old posts from Xanga, but that could be a chore. We’ll see. Thanks for visiting and stay tuned.

My old blog, Diary of a Pilgrimage

Moses takes on the weight of leading God’s people and finds it too heavy. God reminds him that he’s not supposed to be carrying it by himself. Both Moses and the apostles in today’s gospel learn that if we try to do everything by ourselves, we are bound to get frustrated and fail. Yet, when we allow God to lead, there is no difficulty that can’t be overcome.

Last week in part 1 of a 4 part series on the Eucharist, I spoke of the Mass in the context of the traditional “family meal.” Jesus wants to share an intimate meal with us and to build up our family, the body of Christ. This week I offer the image of the Mass as sacrifice. What do we mean when we refer to the “Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?” God spent thousands of years forming his chosen people in the practice of sacrifice. This context is just as important for us today if we are going to understand what happens at Mass and what our role is.

St. Alphonsus is one of the 33 doctors of the Church and is known for his teachings on the Eucharist, Mary, and the moral law.

“When NASA began looking for astronauts, we spent a long time discussing the psychological requisites necessary for an astronaut, and the result of our discussion was that we ought to look for them among the priests….A young, healthy priest, qualified in engineering, in chemistry, in medicine, in geology, and able to pilot a plane competently” (Rocket Men, Craig Nelson, pp34-5).

I might have to learn a little more in the medicine and geology fields, but as for the rest I think I fit the bill very nicely. If anyone from NASA is out there reading, I recommend revisiting this initial wisdom. To think that if we had started the space program today I could have been one of the first Mercury astronauts! I thought getting my pilot’s license would be as close as I ever got to space, but now I have new hope. Therefore…

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the next decade is out, of landing a priest on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

If you thought “man on the moon” was impressive, just wait until you experience “Mass on the moon”!

Mass for Life – January 22, 2009

My name is Fr. Shawn Tunink and I am the Associate Pastor at Most Pure Heart of Mary parish here in Topeka and also the chaplain at Hayden High School here. I’d like to welcome both those here from Topeka and especially those who have joined us from all across our great state of Kansas. Know that there are many others who would like to be here. Due to the limited space here, most of the students from Hayden and our grade schools have returned to school.

Although the walls of our church limit the numbers physically present, we gather here mindful that we do so in solidarity with many others. In parish churches and cathedrals all across the country today we gather to pray. Our thoughts and prayers are with our brothers and sisters who at this very moment are marching for life in Washington, D.C. The March for Life West Coast will soon be taking place in San Francisco. We join with those gathered in state capitols and government offices across the country.  In the face of evil, one of the most important things we can do is to gather together to pray. Today, we most certainly are aware that we are not alone.

Our gathering today is one of mixed emotions. In the yearly cycle of celebrations on our church calendar, surely this is a day that we wish we did not have to commemorate. Yet, the spirit of this day is one of hope, and not merely a worldly hope or wish that somehow things would be different. It is a hope informed by our faith and centered in the love of God.

I remember being in Washington eight years ago for a different presidential inauguration. On that day many people were saying that there was now a great hope for the pro-life movement. In the previous years we had gathered in front of the White House knowing that the man inside would veto any meager pro-life legislation we might try to pass. Then, on that day, we had hope that the newly inaugurated president was one of us. We felt a renewed sense of optimism that we had an ally in the White House. This largely proved to be true over the last 8 years.

Today, our new president is undoubtedly the most pro-abortion president in history, and people are tempted to lose hope. In the face of legislation that could wipe out all the modest advances in pro-life legislation we’ve passed over the last 36 years, we might be tempted to lose hope. The lesson here is that we must not judge our success by what legislation we are able to pass. We must not put our hope in whoever the latest president might be, and we can never hope for an earthly Supreme Court to render the justice only God can give. Despite all of the clouds that gather around us we most surely gather in great hope today, for our hope is centered not on the things of this earth, but in God, a God who is faithful and assures us the victory.

On this day especially the pro-abortion forces look at us and ask, “Why are you still here? Don’t you know that this issue has been decided? It’s been 36 years, when are you going to go away?” Yet as we look around our church today and at the rallies here and across the country, we are encouraged by so many young faces. There are many here that have been fighting this battle for 36 years now and I’m sure it brings them great joy to see all of you young people here today. No, we’re not going anywhere. For those who have carried the touch these many years and continue to do so, we are thankful. For those students here for the first time, this torch is being passed to you and you give us great hope.

Those who favor abortion are indeed eager to see us give up. They are puzzled by the fact that we continue to fight so strongly and think they can end the debate by telling us simply, “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.” We don’t have to go back too far in our nation’s history to arrive at the time when many people claimed “If you are opposed to owning slaves, then don’t own one.” That answer was not acceptable then, and it is not acceptable now. It was not hard to reason that if some people were only acknowledged to be 3/5ths of a person then our country could not last. Our Kansas “free state” ancestors knew the stakes were high and they were willing to go to war rather than quietly allow the country to self-destruct.

Today, we are met with claims that some people are even less than 3/5ths of a person; some people are not people at all. Or worse, maybe they really are people, but we should have the right to kill them anyway because they are inconvenient or unwanted…sadly oftentimes just…not useful. In the 1860’s they realized that, as sad as it was to think about the prospect of spilling American blood on our soil, it was worth going to war to save the nation. It was not enough to be personally opposed to slavery. The 3/5ths compromise did not bring peace then nor will compromise with evil bring peace now.

And so we must fight. Sadly, today we need not contemplate the future possibility of the shedding of American blood on American soil, for the blood of 50 million innocent children already stains our land and continues to flow. Rather than a future possibility, this is the sad present reality, and it is for this reason that we fight. We are at war to save our souls, the souls of our children and the soul of our nation. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “We are now met on a great battlefield of that war, testing whether this nation or any other nation can long endure.” We are here because we love our country and it is worth fighting for.

Yet, it is impossible to love our country if we fail to love our brothers and sisters. For that reason we are here today to pray for the innocent children in danger of abortion. We are here today to stand up for women who have been victimized by the abortion industry. We are here today in solidarity with our elderly brothers and sisters who are suffering at the end of their lives and see no reason to live. We are here today to pray for inmates on death row. We are here today to appeal to scientists and doctors not to use their God-given talents to destroy the very lives they should be trying to save. We are here today to tell our elected officials that no legislation that removes the freedom of choice for people of conscience to object to abortion, or removes the freedom of choice for parents to be involved in the lives of their teenage daughters, or that forces tax payers to fund the murder of children…we are here today to say that no such legislation could ever be called a “freedom of choice act” and is not worthy to even be spoken of in the hallowed halls of our capitol.

Most importantly, we are here today because we love God and we know that this is a war that we cannot win on our own. This is a war whose first shots were fired when Satan chose to use his freedom to tell God, “I will not serve.” The battle over abortion is just the latest battle in the ongoing war of the kingdom of God verses the kingdom of Satan. St. Paul reminds us that our fight is not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers. Therefore our weapons must be those of prayer and fasting, humility, and most importantly…love. We fight with love. Only the God who is love can overcome the cycle of fear, hate, and death in which we are now trapped. If we fight through, with, and in his love, there is no doubt who wins this war in the end.

In scripture we read that our Israelite ancestors, in order to purge themselves of the collective sin of their community, would gather each year and symbolically lay the guilt of all onto a goat which they would then drive out into the desert, the so-called “scapegoat.” Today we gather in similar fashion to do penance for the sins of our nation and seek to drive the sin of abortion far away from our land. We may have no goat with us today on which to lay this guilt, but we have something better. We have the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of not just our nation, but the sins of the world.

The book of Revelation sings about this lamb and it is filled with hymns of victory. The lamb is victorious over sin and death. Today, although we are indeed met on a great battlefield of this ongoing war, we are also here to remind ourselves that we are the winners. We are here to claim victory! Although the final victory still awaits us, in the timelessness of the Eucharistic sacrifice which we are about to offer, we join the angels and saints as they sing their hymn of victory with the lamb. We join with St. Michael and all the holy angels as they celebrate their victory over the angels of darkness. And yes, we join with the souls of all the victims of abortion who stand around the throne and urge us on in the fight, that one day we might join them.

Often war seems to bring out the worst in people. But as we have said, this is a different kind of war. Whenever we in the pro-life movement gather you cannot help but notice that there you will find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness…as our 8th graders could probably tell you…all the fruits of the Holy Spirit. To confront the evil spirit that we must battle, we need the Holy Spirit.

To wherever there is darkness, confusion and death, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To wherever there is fear and doubt, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To wherever women are alone and feel they have no choice, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To homes and families broken by abortion, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the bedside of the suffering and dying, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the laboratories of scientists who would experiment with life, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the halls of justice near death row, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To Wichita and all cities stained with the blood of the abortion mills, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To doctors who have forgotten what it means to be instruments of healing, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the halls of our legislatures, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To our Supreme Court buildings, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the office of our governor and the oval office, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the hearts of all men and women whose hearts are hardened against life, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit
To the hearts of all who long to see the day when life will be victorious, we pray…Come, Holy Spirit

Almighty God, this battle is one that we cannot and do not fight alone. We need your help and healing. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth. May it be so. Amen

One of the most famous lines from the Declaration of Independence includes the following familiar words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In yesterday’s inaugural address, President Obama restated the text this way:

“The time has come to…carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

Though subtle, there are major differences between these two citations that I think tell us some very important things about our new President, but also about the spirit of the age in which we live.

1. In the Declaration the principles being affirmed are called self-evident truths. Notice that there is no mention of truth in the President’s restatement. Instead, we have a “noble idea.” Self-evident truth implies an objective reality that is clearly known by all. An “idea” exists in subjective reality. It is not self-evident and true in itself. Rather it must be “passed on from generation to generation” to be accepted or rejected as people see fit.
2. In the Declaration we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights. In the rewrite there are no rights that are given by a higher power. Rather what is given is a “promise” that we already are equal, free etc. We need to really look hard at the differences between the two texts here because they show some very critical differences in world views.

   For one thing, notice that the idea of a Creator is removed from the rewrite. If we are created then this implies that we are inferior to and dependent upon the one who created us. It is much more comfortable for our modern independent mindset to reduce the Creator down to “God” who can remain as a distant and merely observing power.

   Look carefully also at the difference between a “right” and a “promise.” The Declaration says we have rights that are inherent in our creation. This is a statement of fact that does not depend on anyone’s opinion. What does it even mean to say that God would “promise” that “all are equal?” Notice the omission again of the notion of creation. Either people are inherently equal or they are not; either they have rites or they don’t. There is no such thing as a “promise” of truth.

3. Finally, let’s compare the lists of rights/promises:

   Declaration – “All men are created equal” / Obama - ”All are equal”
   Declaration – “Liberty” / Obama – “All are free”
   Declaration – “Pursuit of happiness” / Obama “…pursue their full measure of happiness”

   Let’s see…equality…liberty…pursuit of happiness…
   What’s missing?

   The right to LIFE!

Don’t think that the changes made in President Obama’s rewrite of the Declaration of Independence were done casually. Each change reflects a diliberate rejection of the world view espoused by the founders. Most especially, don’t think for one minute that the right to life was accidentally left off the list of “promises.”

 This is of course the great American Bison (scientific name bison bison). This is our state mammal and not our state animal because, as every good Kansan knows, the three-toed box turtle is our state reptile and the honey bee is our state insect. Did you notice the fine depiction of the state flower in the background? The prairie dogs are of course cute, but not official anything’s.

Here is another shot of a buffalo outside with a Kansa Indian from which the name of our great state is taken:

Here is a rare close-up of me with a subspecies of the majestic, yet friendly and petable, state mammal, the bison bison stonis statuis

After our time at the Museum of Kansas history I got to add my contribution to this Tunink family Kansas history “Day O’ Fun”.

Thanks to a very wonderful parishioner I had some very wonderful tickets for the KU game. When I say very wonderful, I can’t emphasize this enough as this picture was taken from my actual seat. I dare say I will never have better seats in Allen Fieldhouse in my life. After so many years of seeing games from the band, this was a real treat. To close out this Kansas History day, I leave you with two of the most important artifacts in Kansas History:

For this update, I thought would focus on an exciting new leisure time activity I’m working on. I have always loved planes and flying. I recently attended an air show in Kansas City with my dad and saw the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Whenever I get a new computer, the motivating factor is normally because I need better speed for my flight simulator. I have been doing flying lessons on my computer for years now and especially enjoy all the instrument navigation.

Despite all the simulator fun, I always told myself that when I finally got settled down somewhere I would look into actually learning how to fly. Well, I decided that time was now and so I went to the local airport here in Topeka to see about getting my private pilot’s license. It turned out it was going to be at least $7,000 and probably more like $10,000. That just doesn’t work for a priest, so I decided to go back to my computer.

Well, the next weekend I ran into some parishioners who are partners in an airplane. One of them is even a flight instructor and we worked it out so that I could take my first ride in a small plane. Here is a picture of the plane:

Whoops! That’s actually the F-14 Tomcat that I visited at the Combat Air Museum here in Topeka. I got to touch it but not actually fly it. Sorry. Here’s the plane that I actually flew in:

That’s me and my flight instructor, Jay, along with the Piper Comanche that I piloted. When I say I piloted, I do in fact mean that I was the pilot. When we got ready to get in the plane I thought I would be lucky just to sit in the front seat. Instead, Jay told me that I was going to be in the left seat as the pilot. I got to take off, fly around, and even land. Yes, that’s right, I landed the plane on my first time flying. There were dual controls, so Jay assured me he wouldn’t let me crash. Luckily it didn’t come to that and I did my first bit of piloting all by myself. Here are some action shots:

That’s the Kansas River down there

Don’t I look focused?

Here I am aligned for my perfect (well, almost) first landing

This was a wonderful experience and got me excited about flying. Still, the expense is remains a bit of a problem. However, it turns out that Jay is not only a Certified Flight Instructor, but is an advisor for a local Explorer Post of Air Scouts. Being that I’m the chaplain for all the scouts in the Archdiocese, I’ve decided I need to get to know these Air Scouts. I’m going to their ground school each Saturday morning which is great and, eventually, I may get to fly and work on my license. We’ll see. I’m kind of waiting to see where God leads in all this. If He opens a path that will be within a priest’s budget, then this may work. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks to Daric for being my passenger and back seat photographer on my inaugural voyage. I hope there are many more.

I have finally moved into my new home at Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Topeka, KS. I have been assigned here as the Associate Pastor (Parochial Vicar in church law). I am also the Chaplain for Hayden High School here in Topeka as well as Chaplain to the Archdiocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting. So, I’ve definitely got enough to keep my busy. Right now I’m just working on getting everything out of my boxes and into their new homes.

I haven’t done much with my blog since ordination as I’ve been very busy. Almost immediately after being ordained I returned to Mundelein Seminary in Chicago to finish an advanced degree. I graduated in May with a Master of Divinity degree in the “secular” system and a Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology in the “ecclesiastical” system. I returned to complete a Licentiate in Sacred Theology which is kind of like a PhD “all but dissertation” (ABD). I took a couple classes and then had my final comprehensive exam before the board, which I passed. The only thing left now is to write my thesis. I did a lot of research while I was back at school, but now I need to find the time to write.

This next week I am headed to the National Training Center of the Boy Scouts to learn more about being a Scout Chaplain. The center is located at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico where I’ve been backpacking twice before. I haven’t really had much “down” time yet this summer, so this will be good. There will be lots of classes, but just to be out in the scenic beautiful of Philmont will be a refreshing change of pace. When I get back I intend to be more regular in updating my blog. Thanks to all who have made my first two months of priesthood so wonderful.

We got up today and got a quick “official” tour of the Church of the Annunciation. We’ll be back again in January, so this was just a brief introduction. While standing outside the church, our guide had me read a little reflection. I was reading loudly so that everyone could hear. In the middle, the reading brought words to my mouth which referred to Nazareth as a “backwater place filled with hicks”. I kind of had to stop for a second hoping that no one living in Nazareth heard was I just said.

Ruins of the Ancient City of Jericho

 We then loaded up the bus, bid goodbye to Nazareth for a few weeks, and headed south for Jericho. Unfortunately, the site of the ruins of the city of Jericho was closed because the workers are on strike. We did, however, get to take cable cars to the top of the Mt. of Temptation. This is the traditional site where Jesus was in the desert for 40 days and was tempted by the devil. There is a monastery up there that I found very beautiful with many wonderful icons and an exquisite dome over the chapel. There’s one monk that lives up there and we were lucky that he was home. On our way out of Jericho we stopped by what is supposed to be the tree that Zacchaeus climbed in order to see Jesus (Luke 19:1-10). As ridiculous as that may sound, it turns out that the tree is indeed likely to be 2000 years old. There are however, other historical problems that seem to say that this is not the tree.

Monastery on the Mt. of Temptation

 
Rock Where Jesus was Tempted, Iconostasis and Dome in the Monastery Chapel

 Our final stop was at another monastery out in the desert like Mar Saba that we visited earlier. This one is dedicated to St. George and is in a truly incredible place. It’s in the middle of the desert on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho (the Good Samaritan went this way) in a big gorge by a river. This location is said to be where St. Joachim received the revelation that his wife Anne, who was sterile, would conceive. The child was of course Mary. So, you could say that the annunciation of the Immaculate Conception took place here. This final stop concluded our 3 day tour and we headed back to Bethlehem to continue our Advent preparation. I find that I have much to aid my meditation thanks to this wonderful trip so connected with the Holy Family.

 
Road to Jericho and St. George Monastery

See More Pictures

Our first stop today was the city of Cana. It is actually very close to Nazareth and only took us about 15 minutes to get there. Here we visited the “Wedding Church” which commemorates the story told in John’s gospel where Jesus changed the water into wine (John 2:1-11). Many couples come here to be married or to renew their wedding vows. Our guide had in fact been married here. One of the more interesting things to see here is an ancient stone water jar from the 1^st century that was found here. It’s a lot bigger than you might envision and would have indeed held a lot of wine. Speaking of wine, they do in fact sell quite a bit of “Cana Wedding Wine” here. I tried some, but found it a little too sweet for my taste. I’m sure the wine Jesus made was better.

Stone Water Jar Found at Cana

Mt. Tabor, See the Church on Top?

 From Cana we headed to Mt. Tabor and the Church of the Transfiguration. It was here on Mt. Tabor that Jesus took Peter, James, and John and was transfigured before them (Matt 17:1-8). Fortunately we had a couple hours to spend here, including having Mass. Mt. Tabor is basically a big hill that is all by itself with plains below on all sides. To get to the top you have to take special taxis because it’s too steep for the busses. As we were going up I couldn’t help but think that Jesus obviously had something pretty important in mind to take the apostles all the way up to the top of this mountain. It’s not the kind of place you would just go for the heck of it. It’s difficult enough to get there in a taxi, yet alone to walk up. When you’re on top it is in fact a wonderful place to pray. We had a beautiful day and I enjoyed praying the luminous mysteries of the rosary, meditating with new insight on the mysteries of the Wedding at Cana and the Transfiguration.

    
Church of the Transfiguration

 Much like St. Peter I felt “It is good to be here” and did not want to leave. However, after lunch we reluctantly said goodbye to Mt. Tabor and headed on to our next stop. We made a brief stop in the city of Nain where Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead (Luke 7:11-17) and then headed on to Megiddo. This is the famous Armageddon of Rev 16:16 (Har Megiddo = Hill of Megiddo). This city is in ruins now and has been the site of countless battles in history. The bible is full of references. Megiddo is what is known as a “tell,” meaning that one city has been built on top of the previous so many times as to make an artificial hill. Archeologists have determined that the tell of Megiddo has the ruins of 25 distinct rebuildings of the city. We saw an ancient pagan altar that was 7000 years old. King Solomon is responsible for one of the sets of walls around the town. I didn’t get any great religious insights at the place, but it was interesting to be there in such a famous and ancient place. Since the world did not end while we were at Megiddo we headed back to Nazareth for the night.

Ruins at Megiddo

 After dinner, the Mother Superior of the convent invited us to tour the excavations that were taking place under their convent. We thought we’d find some pottery shards or something small and insignificant. Instead, we found some of the most incredible ruins from the Crusaders, the Byzantines, and even the first century. The most amazing thing by far was the rock cut tomb from the first century complete with the stone that rolls across it. There are ancient documents that even mention things that would seem to refer to this site under the convent. Archeologists come each year and it will be interesting to see what they continue to find. Before bed a number of us went back to the Church of the Annunciation and prayed a rosary in Mary’s house. I was again overwhelmed. There I was saying the words “Hail Mary” in the very place where Gabriel first uttered this prayer. This is just an amazing place. I also bought a special icon of the Holy Family here tonight that is all the more meaningful having come from this city so close to the Holy Family.

Church of the Annunciation, Mary’s House in Grotto

See More Pictures

Today we loaded up the bus bright and early and headed north for a 3 day tour of Galilee. We’ll be going back for 5 more days in January, so this was just a taste. Our first stop was the ruins of the ancient city of Caesarea. This place is right on the Mediterranean Sea and is absolutely beautiful. The city was one of the major port cities in the first century, with a harbor that could hold 200 ships. There are lots of ruins including a Roman theater, hippodrome, and aqueduct. Also located here is what is beginning to be a recurring theme of our field trips, a palace of King Herod the Great. It seems he had palaces everywhere. However, this time he actually lived here for a while (See Acts 12:19). From the religious side of things, this city has a very important history. It was here in Caesarea that St. Paul was held prisoner before being sent to Rome to stand trial. (See Acts 25).

The Ancient Port of Caesarea

 From Caesarea we continued up the coast to Mt. Carmel and the port city of Haifa. From the top of Mt. Carmel we had an absolutely gorgeous view of the Bay of Haifa and the surrounding town. You might recall here about this place on the news this summer as Lebanon was firing rockets into this town. Next, we visited the Carmelite monastery on top of Mt. Carmel and the church dedicated to Our Lady known as Stella Maris. Like most churches here in the Holy Land, the present church was built in modern times on top of a Crusader church which was built on top of a Byzantine church. It is from this spot that Elijah is said to have had the vision of the small cloud that grew into a storm which the Carmelites came to see as an image of Mary (1 Kings 18:42). Inside the church, under the sanctuary is the cave where Elijah hid from King Ahaz and Jezebel.

Stella Maris Carmelite Church on Mt. Carmel
Cave of Elijah Below

 It turns out that Mt. Carmel is not just a single pointy kind of mountain like you might envision, but a long ridge. So we followed the top of the mountain inland for a few miles to the highest point. Here there is also a Carmelite monastery that is located on the site where Elijah had his famous duel with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18:20-40). We also had a very nice view of the surrounding country. We could see the very lush and green Jezreel Valley below, as well as Mt. Tabor in the distance where we will go tomorrow. After seeing the large desert around Bethlehem, it was a very nice change to see how green and beautiful the northern areas are. I can see why Jesus would have liked to live here.

View of Jezreel Valley from Mt. Carmel

 It was evening by this time, so we headed on to Nazareth where we would be staying for the next two nights. It turns out that the convent where we are staying is right next to the Church of the Annunciation. This church is again, a modern church, built over a Crusader church, built over a Byzantine church, and this time built over a first century home. All of the ruins are contained inside the new church and you can actually see all the different structures. The most important thing is the first century cave that was the home of Mary. It was here that the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary. One thing that is frustrating about the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is that so much has been added to the cave where Jesus was born that it can be hard to envision it the way it was originally. In the Church of the Annunciation, however, you really feel like you’re walking into Mary’s house when you go there. I was so overwhelmed to be in this place that I couldn’t even enter the house right away. I just knelt down at the entrance and prayed the first joyful mystery of the rosary for a while. St. John’s Gospel beautifully tells us that “The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us.” This phrase is written in Latin on the front of the church. However, down in the grotto, under the altar that is in Mary’s house, you will find instead the quote, in Latin, “The Word Became Flesh HERE”. This was probably the most amazing experience of the entire pilgrimage so far. Unlike the grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem with all the people, it was quiet here in Nazareth and I was just completely taken over by the thought of Mary’s encounter with Gabriel in this very place. Right before my eyes was the exact location where God became Man. I could almost see the encounter taking place in front of me and found myself listening longingly for Mary’s humble reply to the angel. I can’t really describe it adequately in words. This is a special place. I could have stayed there for much longer, but we have another full day planned for tomorrow.

Grotto of the Annunciation, Mary’s House in Nazareth
“The Word Became Flesh HERE”

See More Pictures

Tomorrow we are heading to Galilee for three days to visit Nazareth, Cana, Mt. Carmel and a few other places. I don’t know what the internet situation will be there, so you may not get an update until we get back on Tuesday. We’ll be going to Galilee for three more days later on, but it will be nice to able to visit the Church of the Annunciation in preparation for Christmas. This has been the greatest Advent ever. I should definitely feel prepared to celebrate our savior’s birth this year. It will be interesting to see how many more pilgrims will have arrived this week. They are hoping for a lot here and we will do our part in celebrating. Now, I’m off to dinner and I’m going to try to do better than the Blues Brothers this time. You are in my prayers.

I see by the number of people that are coming to my site now that there are quite a lot of people following my pilgrimage. I’m so happy that people are enjoying my pictures and stories. You really have to be here to experience it, but I’m glad that maybe I can share a little bit with people back home. Let me know if there’s anything you’re interested in that you want me to write about or get a picture of.

View of Bethlehem from my Bedroom Window

 Qumran with Famous Cave #4

From Qumran we went next to En Gedi. This place was made famous as the hideout of David when he was fleeing from Saul as told in 1 Samuel 24. David hid in a cave here and could have killed Saul when he entered the cave, but decided to spare his life. It was really neat to be in this area and see the great high cliffs and picture Saul in pursuit of David. It’s really kind of interesting to see the landscape in which all this played out. En Gedi remains an oasis to this day in the middle of a barren and rugged country. We hiked along a river to a spring and our guide pointed out some of the animals that the Bible mentions as being in this area, including the Ibex (wild goat) and Hyrax (translated gopher in our Bibles) which I thought were kind of cute (see all the pictures for examples). I really enjoy the meditation method on Sacred Scripture taught by St. Ignatius where you try to visualize the biblical story as vividly as possible. Now that I’ve been to this place, my image has changed a bit. Every time I would come to a cave, I would wonder if maybe that was the cave that David hid in. Who knows? It has to be here somewhere. It’s neat to envision the story taking place before your eyes. The climate is so dry here that not much has really changed over the years. It looks much the same as it did in the time of David. Check out the pictures and see if it matches how you envisioned this passage.

 The Oasis of En Gedi

On day 11 we visited the Herodian, the ruins of a palace of Herod the Great on top of a mountain near Bethlehem. It turns out that Herod had many palaces scattered about to serve as hiding places in times of trouble. Our next stop today was another one of these palaces. Whereas the Herodian is on top of what would be considered a big volcano-like hill, nothing could prepare me for what we found at this next palace. We had been skirting the lowlands in the valley all day with these huge cliffs to the west. As we approached our destination our guide pointed out what I would consider a mountain with a plateau on top. Herod’s palace, and indeed an entire village, was located on top. The place is called Masada. I’ve never seen anything like this. Here is this huge steep mountain with a flat top on which people actually built a small little city. It reminded me of something the Mayans would have done in Peru, except in a desert. We had to take a cable car to get to the top. The place was chosen for its strategic location. It was very difficult to get to the top and there was no way an army could mount an attack (or so it would seem…) (note the foreshadowing). It turns out that Herod was probably never even here to use his palace. He is actually buried at the Herodian where we were the other day and died before he ever had need of his palace here at Masada.

 Mountain of Masada, There’s a City on Top

View of Dead Sea from top of Masada

The real claim to fame of Masada comes from the 2nd century, about 136 AD, when the last of the Zealots (remember Simon the Zealot, the Apostle) sought refuge from the Romans on top of Masada. Because of the symbolic nature of this group as the last stronghold of the Jews, the Romans were going to spare no expense to put an end to them. They estimate that there were probably about 900 people living on top including women and children. In order to capture the fort, the Romans employed the standard technique of a siege. Believe it or not, they actually built a siege wall around the mountain. You can still see the wall and the various forts where the Romans camped. The siege lasted over two and a half years. I said before that you would think that no army could mount an attack on the top because of the steep sides, but the Romans had another idea. As unbelievable as building a wall around a mountain is, they actually decided to build a ramp from the valley floor to the top of the mountain. You have to see this to believe it, but that is what they did for two and a half years. Using wood and stone they built a ramp that rises almost a thousand feet at a nice gradual incline. You can still see the ruins of the ramp today and it is impressive. The Romans rolled a battering ram up the ramp and knocked down the wall. However there is huge twist in the story. The Jewish historian Josephus tells us that when the Romans finally breeched the wall they encountered not a battle but only a couple women and children and 900 corpses from everyone else who had committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. Each husband killed his wife and children and then ten men were chosen by lot to kill all the other men. Finally, one man was chosen to kill the other 9 and then himself. Some of the historical details are now questioned, but it is an amazing story. I had never heard of this story or of Masada before today, but there was apparently a famous movie made about it. I will have to look it up when I get home.

Ruins of Roman Ramp to Top of Masada

Our final stop was one of no religious significance at all, but was a lot of fun. We finished up the day by going swimming in the Dead Sea. I say swimming, but I use the term loosely. Floating is probably better. As you may be aware, the mineral content of the Dead Sea is so high (26% I think) that you cannot sink. It is the strangest thing. You walk out a little way and then just sit down and you float. I could stand straight up without touching the bottom and you just float there. It actually makes it kind of hard to really swim because you can’t keep enough of your body in the water. You keep popping out. It’s much warmer at the Dead Sea and we had close to 80 degrees all day. The water however was kind of cold, but it was worth it. It’s an experience you can only get in the Dead Sea. The reason for the high mineral content is that all of the water in the region, including the Jordan River, runs into the Dead Sea, but there is no outlet. It is the lowest point on earth. So, the water is constantly evaporating, but none of the salt ever leaves. As you walk out into the water, the bottom is actually covered with large salt crystals. Don’t get any of the water in your eye though because it burns really bad. As an added bonus today, we also got to watch Israeli fighter jets buzzing by us every so often. They were coming really low over the Dead Sea while we were swimming and made a lot of noise. It was like an air show. We floated for about an hour and then headed for home. These field trip days are just wonderful, but you sure do feel like you’ve had a full day when it’s over. I need some rest now.

 Me “Swimming” in the Dead Sea

See More Pictures

God is great; God is great (Allah Akbar!);
I attest that there is not (another God), except God;
I attest that Mohammad is the chosen of God;
Arise! (Come) to prayer;
Arise! (Come) to salvation (at Dawn – prayer is better than sleep)
God is great! God is great!
There is not (another God), except God.

That doesn’t really sound so bad now does it? Admittedly, it can sound like quite a cacophony when every Mosque in the city is playing this as loud as they can at the same time. However, when I remember that they are just yelling how great God is, then it kind of makes me feel good.

Allah Akbar! God is Great!

 The Mosque of Omar at Manger Square