Epiphany Homily

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. It is typical on this solemn feast for us to focus on these three gifts and their important prophecy and testament. It is right for us to do so for these wise men acted under divine inspiration to present such a fitting offering to our infant King. In the encounter of the magi, Christ, the light from on high, is made manifest to the nations of the world. The Church also offers the Lord’s manifestations in the Jordan baptism and His first miracle in Cana.

Tonight I will direct our hearts to contemplate the gift that is given to us. Epiphany celebrates the rich fullness of our Catholic faith and the salvation of our Lord. Christ did not come simply to mechanically die and rise for salvation; Christ came to show us the true meaning of our humanity. Christ shows us the meaning of St. Irenaeus’ words “The glory of God is man who is fully alive.”

As Americans, cultural heirs of the Puritan and Protestant movements, minimized salvation dominates our imaginations. Our conception of the life of grace is reduced to legal guilt and innocence. The manifestation of the Incarnation reveals much more in the full Catholic vision of salvation: abundant life. That ancient homily of Athansius: “God became man so that man might become a God.”

Why else did God take on human flesh than to save everything that is human: our intellect, our wills, our imaginations, our play, our work, our family life—it was too little for God to simply save our souls. God the Father desired to save everything He created. The prophet Isaiah says: “It is too little, for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The ends of the earth pertain to the ends of your humanity as well. This is what Satan is most afraid of- redeemed and sanctified man, the man who is fully alive. This is why St. John Vianney was thrown all over his rectory. The personal path to this sanctity is the same as it has always been: the Sacraments, prayer, fasting, and holy works. What is different in our day is that the world is more openly hostile. Satan’s victory in the Reformation was twofold- the division of Christendom and the division of holiness from daily life. We see the second in the division in the relativism of the day.

So what is a family to do? First, pursue holiness within your own particular humanity. Jesus loves your humanity and wants to sanctify it in a personal and particular way. Second, we need to show forth this sanctified life to the world around us. I spent my Octave and New Years with 4000 college students living the Sacraments. There, Jeff Cavins, an author of Catholic Bible studies, told the story of his own conversion. Was it an argument, a passage, or his failings? No, it was the witness of his wife’s family as they prayed and played together as a domestic church.

In the Wedding at Cana, our Lord manifests Himself at our Lady’s request. “They have no wine,” is all she says. Wine is a sign of joy, giving warmth to men’s hearts. In a world darkened by sin, there is no joy where Christ is not present. They have no joy in our world today. They need to taste and sample the joy of Christian life, the joy of Christian families. Think of your own conversion, whenever the people of darkness encounter the joy of Christ, the world is transformed. You are called Christians for you are little Christs, by the Sacraments of the Church you live out His commission. Our Lady says to you, “They have no wine.”

Not my homily...

I've been sick this week and haven't gotten around to posting my homily from Sunday but I found a couple of great articles by other Catholic bloggers that you should read if you haven't.

The first one concerns our Holy Father, Pope Benedict. In our country we are often very limited in how we describe people and it usually comes out as one of these terms: "liberal" or "conservative." Some people in our mainstream media have struggled to describe Pope Benedict and if you're only reading about him there, you need to find other sources. Carl Olson, a blogger from Oregon, has a great article regarding Pope Benedict.

What's important to note about Benedict XVI's "radicalism" is that it does not rest upon success in the political sphere; his vision for the Church fundamentally eschews much of what actually is shared in common between contemporary "liberals" and "conservatives." In the American context, "liberals" and "conservatives" alike are too much and too often in the throes of the modern orthodoxies, particularly a near-fanatic embrace of science and technology, devotion to "progress," "choice," and "growth," and a fealty to "the Market." Both are essentially earth-oriented, power-hungry and materialist.

We make a grave mistake if we interpret and understand the actions and activities of Pope Benedict XVI through the narrowly political lens that we all tend to wear in these times.

I really hope you read the whole article.

The second blogger is no ordinary blogger, its the Archbishop of New York, New York, Timothy Dolan! That's right, this is a real live Archbishop, the Archbishop of "The City that Never Sleeps" and he is blogging. I've read Archbishop's writings and I've heard him preach on retreats- these are his words. He isn't writing fluff pieces either, here he takes on the New York Times for having an anti-Catholic bias in some articles.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.

I hope you read His Excellency's article in full and frequent his blog. He's at a blistering pace since he started with over 15 articles in a month. Say a prayer for Archbishop Dolan as he leads the Church in New York.

Homily for 29th Sunday, Oct. 18, 2009

This past week has apparently been a slow week for news. The leading issue on CNN the past four days has been whether or not the balloon boy in Colorado was a publicity stunt by his attention starved family. In such a leisurely week, you might have caught this ridiculous news item as well. A marginally successful Hollywood comedian, Sarah Silverman, released a youtube video challenging the Holy Father.

Ms. Silverman proposes that Pope Benedict should sell off the Vatican: land, buildings, artwork and everything to feed the poor of the world. Ms. Silverman’s proposal [linked out of fairness], which is laced with profanity, seems new and interesting. Or possibly she was watching the 1968 movie “The Shoes of the Fisherman” starring Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn, which makes a similar case without swearing.

Ms. Silverman’s proposal misses two points. First, the Church already does feed the world. We said this last week, but today, on World Mission Sunday and a few days after U.N. World Food Day, it bears repeating. No private or public institution serves and cares for more poor than does the Catholic Church. Secondly, the artistic holdings of the Church are more than simply dollar signs in a frame on a wall.

The artistic treasures of the Church, not only in Rome but throughout the world, are more powerful than any dollar. Why? They inspire hearts to the Gospel life. I have prayed Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, I have toured the Sistine Chapel, and I have visited the Vatican Art Museum. I spent 30 minutes looking at Raphael’s Transfiguration. This painting of the event from Matthew 17 is over 12 feet tall and features some of the most vivid colors I have ever seen. This painting inspired me with a greater love for Jesus Christ, in almost 500 years it has inspired millions. The artwork of the Vatican is there to turn hearts to Jesus Christ and to service of our fellow man.

Even in a slow week, I am sure few, if any, of you heard of the Special Synod for Africa, that was going on in Rome. Pope Benedict and several hundred African bishops gathered to pray and talk about the Church’s mission to Africa. From this meeting comes the heart of Christian mission. Sr. Genevieve Uwamariya, a Sister of St. Mary of Namur. Sr. Genevieve is a survivor of the 1994 Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda in which most of her family was killed while in a church. One day, while visiting prisoners awaiting execution for genocide, Sr. Genevieve shared this with the Holy Father:

“On August 27th 1997 at 1 p.m., a group from the Catholic association of the “Ladies of Divine Mercy” led me to two prisons in the region of Kibuye, my birthplace. They went to prepare the prisoners for the Jubilee of 2000. They said: “If you have killed, you commit yourself to ask for forgiveness from the surviving victim, that way you can help him free himself of the burden/weight of vengeance, hatred and rancor. If you are a victim, you commit yourself to offer forgiveness to those who harmed you and thus you free them from the weight of their crime and the evil that is in them.”

This message had an unexpected effect for me and in me...

After that, one of the prisoners rose in tears, fell to his knees before me, loudly begging: “Mercy”. I was petrified in recognizing a family friend who had grown and shared everything with us.

He admitted having killed my father and told me the details of the death of my family.

A feeling of pity and compassion invaded me: I picked him up, embraced him and told him in a tearful voice: “You are and always will be my brother”.

Then I felt a huge weight lift away from me... I had found internal peace and I thanked the person I was holding in my arms.

To my great surprise, I heard him cry out: “Justice can do its work and condemn me to death, now I am free!...”

I also wanted to cry out to who wanted to hear: “Come see what freed me, you too can find internal peace”.

This mission of forgiveness is the heart of the Church. If we are to create a culture of life then we must begin by forgiving those who harm us, even grievously. When Sr. Genevieve forgave this man, genocide did not then become allowable- she forgave the person and not the action. With this in mind, listen again to the letter to the Hebrews:

"Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God,
let us hold fast to our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has similarly been tested in every way,
yet without sin.
So let us confidently approach the throne of grace
to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help."

The Eternal Revolution of Christianity

In my homilies of late (What, those didn't post? Oh, I must have been lazy or rather, I am learning first hand the beautiful sacrifice of parenthood), I have been pointing out that the major source of contention between Catholicism and the culture at large is NOT the nature of God but rather the nature of man. The "hot-button" issues of our day: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, the definition of marriage- they can be addressed as simply natural and non-theological discussions. I am at odds with the culture around me, not because I believe in Jesus Christ but because of what I believe about our natural world.

In all of this, faith and reason is in accord. In fact, reason looses its ground without faith. Just as faith divorced from reason is inhuman so too reason without faith becomes inhuman. Sandro Magister, an Italian journalist for the magazine Chiesa, has an article about Europe's newest advocate for the reunion of faithful reason. Juan Manuel de Prada is a successful Spanish author who was adrift in the cultural millieau and returned to the "ancient liberty" of the faith in April of 2005 while witnessing the death and burial of Pope John Paul II.

The bulk of Magister's article is the translation of the introduction to de Prada's newest book: The progressive matrix of the new tyranny. De Prada expresses a Catholic vision of engagement with the world around us. What is at stake, what are the battlefields, and what we are to do about it. I can only hope a good translation of the whole work is forthcoming:

The eternal revolution of Christianity consists in revealing to us the meaning of life, restoring to us our nature; from this discovery is born a joy with no expiration date. When this joy is combined with a minimum of artistic sensibility, life becomes a feast for the intelligence. Chesterton wrote that joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.

Read it all and tell me what you think in the comments.

If you say so...

According to Whispers:

a release from the Pontifical Council for Social Communications said that the coming papal message "seeks to invite priests, in a particular way... to consider new media as a great resource for their ministry of service to the Word, and to encourage them to address the challenges born from the new digital culture."

In that spirit, I encourage you to read this interesting article about hand postures of the faithful during the Our Father.

Vacation/Retreat

If a lazy blogger goes on vacation and retreat, will anyone notice?

If they do, pray for me. The plans look wonderful and God is good AND its the year of the priest- what more could I ask for? Your prayers.

Something timely and new when I get back? Pray for Priests

New Assignment

Effective July 1st, 2009, Bishop Swain has asked me to begin ministry as Chaplain of Pope Pius XII Newman Center on the campus of South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD. I am very excited and will have the privilege of working with a FOCUS missionary team.

Additionally I am pastor of St. Paul's in White, SD, a delightful rural community.

Please pray for me.