Homily for the week of December 26, 2010

Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, 2010

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5

Colossians 3:12-21 or 3:12-17

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

Today there are about 214 million international migrants in the world, a number that has doubled in the last 30 years. We hear a lot about those from Mexico and Central America who want to come to the United States, but we hear very little about the Catholics in Iraq and in China who are leaving those countries so that they can practice their Catholic religion without being afraid of being killed in church or on the streets.

In a sense the Holy Family was also migrant family. Today’s Gospel tells of Joseph’s dream in which he is told that Herod intends to kill the baby Jesus. Joseph and Mary flee with Jesus to Egypt, a traditional place of refuge for Jews. They faced a treacherous desert crossing. The Gospel does not give us the details, but we can only imagine Mary and Joseph’s fear as they travel under the cover of darkness and all the hardships they endured. When they arrived in Egypt they had to navigate an unfamiliar language and culture. Who helped them along the way? How did Joseph find work? When could they get back to Nazareth?

We know very little about the Holy Family. Matthew tells us that Mary and Joseph returned with Jesus and live in Nazareth. Luke tells us about the family going to Jerusalem for the Passover, and they lost Jesus in the Temple for about 3 days. This is all!

This weekend we have come to Mass and church to honor the Holy Family of Nazareth -- the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and to honor all families -- to honor your family. Certainly the Holy Family was very different than any of your families, but in many ways it had the same daily needs as your family.

Each of us have a different experience of family depending on the family in which we live or were brought up, or we are forming. We have all sorts of understandings of family. Families come in a lot of shapes and sizes. The so-called traditional family is becoming a smaller and smaller majority. Single parent families, foster families, and blended families make up a large percentage of families in today’s society. In addition to all of these families, for many people family can mean more than those to whom we are biologically related. Some of you may understand family as those group of closely-linked, mutually supportive persons with whom you frequently interact. However, regardless of your understanding of family, the Holy Family of Nazareth can give us something to consider. It can be a model for the Christian family.

The life of the Holy Family was unique in the world. Its life was passed in silence in a little town in Palestine. It underwent trials of poverty, persecution and exile. The family faithfully practiced their Jewish faith, The Holy Family glorified God in an incomparably exalted and glorified way.

Fortunately, most of us value our family and understand its importance for the formation of good and deceit children. Unfortunately, at times we can get caught up with the routines and demands of daily living and do not take the time to take care of this treasure known as family.

Experience tells us that our religious development is based on the type of family relationship in which we grew up. Our image and understanding of God and what God is like is patterned closely on our image of and our relationship with our own father. A child rejected by a father, a child for whom a father is only a punisher, a child who has never known a father, may find it hard or nearly impossible to believe that God loves this boy or girl. The Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father, would be hard to understand.

Often kids do not find the models of family around them, and unfortunately they model themselves after actors they see in the movies, or even the other kids in school or on their school bus. Children watch; they listen; they learn. For good or bad, what parents have patterned in their own lives will be mirrored back in their children. Often at an early age parents have lost any influence on their children.

Children and teenagers, for the most part, are not harmed by the small nagging and quarrelling that may go on between their father and mother. But if they see or sense that their parents or stepparents has no real love for them, it is almost impossible for them to believe or accept the basic truth of our religion that God loves us, and that God cares for us, and even forgives us.

On this feast of the Holy Family, recall the times members of your family have cared for you, have hugged you or held your hand or showed other signs of caring. Think also of someone in your family who needs your forgiveness. Think of someone you know who looks up to you. How can you help them to see that they too have good qualities and are looked up to by others? How do you treat others? How do you behave in public or when you think no one is looking? What is one way that you try to grow in holiness? Let the images of family in our bible readings for today find an application to your understanding of family -- your family.

As we gaze upon the Nativity scene, ask Joseph and Mary and Jesus to help us to be holy parents, holy husbands, holy wives, holy children, holy grandparents. This may well be the best contribution we could ever make to our society and to our family.

Homily for the week of December 19, 2010

The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A 2010

Isaiah 7:10-14

Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-24

If you have been participating at Mass and listened to the Bible readings during these past 3 weeks, you have done a lot of spiritual travelling. You have climbed the Lord's mountain and hiked into the desert for John the Baptist's baptism at the river Jordan.

Today we meet Joseph, the hidden member of the Holy Family of Nazareth. St. Matthew mentions that he is a carpenter. So today we enter into the simple home of Joseph, the carpenter in Nazareth.

We have heard that he will have a son who will become a helper in his carpentry work. Joseph does not speak a word in the entire Bible. What we know about him comes mostly from Mary. But certainly in the small village of Nazareth everyone would have known that Mary and Joseph are engaged to be married, and she is pregnant. Mary and Joseph are not yet married. Jewish culture had little tolerance for an engaged woman who was pregnant by someone other than her intended. Joseph is a righteous man, faithful to all the demands of the Jewish law. The Jewish law would call for the death of the apparently adulterous Mary. But Joseph is unwilling to denounce her publicly and searches for a way out. There cannot be a secret divorce; two witnesses are needed.

Joseph’s first solution is to avoid a public trial and leave Mary quietly without declaring the reasons. This solution would preserve Joseph’s reputation, but Mary would still be exposed to public shame. The only way to preserve Mary’s honor would be for Joseph to complete his marriage to her and adopt the child as his own. In order for Joseph to make this choice he has to shift focus away from concern about his own righteousness and reputation and turn empathetically toward Mary. Only when he can make her the center of his attention, allowing himself to feel her distress, can he make the divinely directed choice that will uphold her honor at the price of his own.

In so doing, Joseph mirrors the divine action of empathy with humankind manifested at Christmas. Just as the Holy One rectifies the broken relationship with humanity by becoming one with us, so Joseph rescues a dishonorable and potentially deadly situation by choosing to unite himself completely to Mary. Joseph exemplifies what their son Jesus will later teach his followers: one must go far beyond what the law requires in order to fulfil it truly.

As a foster father Joseph cared for Jesus, his foster son. A few weeks after Jesus' birth Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to Egypt so that Herod would not kill him. As Jesus was growing up Joseph taught Him the trade of carpentry. In his workshop of Nazareth, Jesus would have learned about the raw materials of his craft: which wood was best suited for chairs and tables, which worked best for yokes and plows. Joseph would have taught Jesus the right way to drive a nail with a hammer, to drill a clean and deep hole in a plank, and to level a ledge or lintel.

Joseph also passed on to Jesus the values required of a good carpenter. Values like patience in waiting for the wood to dry; the need for judgement to ensure that your plumb line is straight; the need for honesty in charging the people a fair price; the need for persistence in sanding until the table top is smooth. All of these qualities which Joseph taught Jesus for about 18 years of Jesus life helped Jesus as he began to do the work that God had sent him to do. Joseph helped to fashion Jesus into the person most needed for the salvation of the world.

As a father Joseph with his wife Mary were also Jesus' first teacher in the Jewish faith. Joseph introduced Jesus to the great men and women of the Jewish religion. He taught him the Hebrew Prayers. He prepared him for his bar mitzvah, and encouraged him to listen to the rabbis in the synagogue.

But almost as soon as Jesus started his own work as Our Saviour Joseph disappears. By the time that Jesus began his preaching Joseph has died. Joseph is not listed among the guests at the wedding feast of Cana when Jesus first began teaching.

Years ago I visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. In the church there is a huge portrait entitled The Death of Joseph by the Spanish artist, Francisco Goya. The sick Joseph is lying in a bed. Standing beside the bed is a young Jesus, probably 16 or 17 years old. Jesus is without a beard, staring at Joseph. Sitting by the bed is Mary. It is an unusual picture of the Holy Family capturing the death of Joseph. It is much like death today where the family gathers as one of the family leaves in death.

Like Joseph, many people --maybe we ourselves -- come to face a dark night of fear, of pain, of confusion and frustration. Maybe all of our efforts to do something good has failed in spite of our best intentions. Maybe the physical and emotional suffering that we thought had by-passed us catches up with us when we are least expecting it.

It is when we feel saddest and are in our worst moods that God tries to talk to us most directly. It is right there in the dark night of doubt and anguish, that God directs our hearts to follow God's will. Even today nature reminds us of this as we are in what is known as winter solstice -- when night is longest and daylight is shortest. But in a few days we begin a day of longer brightness -- a pattern of our life.

The hidden life of St. Joseph is shared by many people. The middle age unmarried woman who looks after her aged mother; the loving parents of the autistic child; the single mother who has to work two jobs to provide for her children; the caring wife who feels unappreciated by her husband; the teenager who struggles to be good.

Let us pray that the spiritual sawdust from the hands of St. Joseph will bless them and us as it did Jesus.

Homily for the week of December 19, 2010

The Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A 2010

Isaiah 7:10-14

Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-24

If you have been participating at Mass and listened to the Bible readings during these past 3 weeks, you have done a lot of spiritual travelling. You have climbed the Lord's mountain and hiked into the desert for John the Baptist's baptism at the river Jordan.

Today we meet Joseph, the hidden member of the Holy Family of Nazareth. St. Matthew mentions that he is a carpenter. So today we enter into the simple home of Joseph, the carpenter in Nazareth.

We have heard that he will have a son who will become a helper in his carpentry work. Joseph does not speak a word in the entire Bible. What we know about him comes mostly from Mary. But certainly in the small village of Nazareth everyone would have known that Mary and Joseph are engaged to be married, and she is pregnant. Mary and Joseph are not yet married. Jewish culture had little tolerance for an engaged woman who was pregnant by someone other than her intended. Joseph is a righteous man, faithful to all the demands of the Jewish law. The Jewish law would call for the death of the apparently adulterous Mary. But Joseph is unwilling to denounce her publicly and searches for a way out. There cannot be a secret divorce; two witnesses are needed.

Joseph’s first solution is to avoid a public trial and leave Mary quietly without declaring the reasons. This solution would preserve Joseph’s reputation, but Mary would still be exposed to public shame. The only way to preserve Mary’s honor would be for Joseph to complete his marriage to her and adopt the child as his own. In order for Joseph to make this choice he has to shift focus away from concern about his own righteousness and reputation and turn empathetically toward Mary. Only when he can make her the center of his attention, allowing himself to feel her distress, can he make the divinely directed choice that will uphold her honor at the price of his own.

In so doing, Joseph mirrors the divine action of empathy with humankind manifested at Christmas. Just as the Holy One rectifies the broken relationship with humanity by becoming one with us, so Joseph rescues a dishonorable and potentially deadly situation by choosing to unite himself completely to Mary. Joseph exemplifies what their son Jesus will later teach his followers: one must go far beyond what the law requires in order to fulfil it truly.

As a foster father Joseph cared for Jesus, his foster son. A few weeks after Jesus' birth Joseph and Mary brought Jesus to Egypt so that Herod would not kill him. As Jesus was growing up Joseph taught Him the trade of carpentry. In his workshop of Nazareth, Jesus would have learned about the raw materials of his craft: which wood was best suited for chairs and tables, which worked best for yokes and plows. Joseph would have taught Jesus the right way to drive a nail with a hammer, to drill a clean and deep hole in a plank, and to level a ledge or lintel.

Joseph also passed on to Jesus the values required of a good carpenter. Values like patience in waiting for the wood to dry; the need for judgement to ensure that your plumb line is straight; the need for honesty in charging the people a fair price; the need for persistence in sanding until the table top is smooth. All of these qualities which Joseph taught Jesus for about 18 years of Jesus life helped Jesus as he began to do the work that God had sent him to do. Joseph helped to fashion Jesus into the person most needed for the salvation of the world.

As a father Joseph with his wife Mary were also Jesus' first teacher in the Jewish faith. Joseph introduced Jesus to the great men and women of the Jewish religion. He taught him the Hebrew Prayers. He prepared him for his bar mitzvah, and encouraged him to listen to the rabbis in the synagogue.

But almost as soon as Jesus started his own work as Our Saviour Joseph disappears. By the time that Jesus began his preaching Joseph has died. Joseph is not listed among the guests at the wedding feast of Cana when Jesus first began teaching.

Years ago I visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. In the church there is a huge portrait entitled The Death of Joseph by the Spanish artist, Francisco Goya. The sick Joseph is lying in a bed. Standing beside the bed is a young Jesus, probably 16 or 17 years old. Jesus is without a beard, staring at Joseph. Sitting by the bed is Mary. It is an unusual picture of the Holy Family capturing the death of Joseph. It is much like death today where the family gathers as one of the family leaves in death.

Like Joseph, many people --maybe we ourselves -- come to face a dark night of fear, of pain, of confusion and frustration. Maybe all of our efforts to do something good has failed in spite of our best intentions. Maybe the physical and emotional suffering that we thought had by-passed us catches up with us when we are least expecting it.

It is when we feel saddest and are in our worst moods that God tries to talk to us most directly. It is right there in the dark night of doubt and anguish, that God directs our hearts to follow God's will. Even today nature reminds us of this as we are in what is known as winter solstice -- when night is longest and daylight is shortest. But in a few days we begin a day of longer brightness -- a pattern of our life.

The hidden life of St. Joseph is shared by many people. The middle age unmarried woman who looks after her aged mother; the loving parents of the autistic child; the single mother who has to work two jobs to provide for her children; the caring wife who feels unappreciated by her husband; the teenager who struggles to be good.

Let us pray that the spiritual sawdust from the hands of St. Joseph will bless them and us as it did Jesus.

Homily for the week of December 12, 2010

The Third Sunday in Advent 2010

Isaiah 35:1-6a, 10

Psalm 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

A construction worker once told me that he had posted a notice at the entrance to a parking garage indicating a new height restriction. At the same time, he constructed the appropriate barrier at the new height. He then realized that his van, which he had left within the parking garage, was above the approved height. He was imprisoned, unable to get his van out.

There are many forms of imprisonment. Some people are sent to prison by society for crimes committed. Some are "prisoners of conscience" who are locked up behind bars for political reasons or because they have spoken out against corruption. Some are imprisoned in their homes either because they are elderly or handicapped and need constant care. Sometimes, too, people are afraid to leave their homes and walk into the street. And many others, like the construction worker, imprison themselves almost without realizing it, until the realization that their life lacks any happiness or peace. More and more persons today become prisoners of their addictions. Some persons can't free themselves from their video games or TV, their ipods or cell phones or shopping malls.

This past week the news reported how a young man controlled by anger went to a missionary school shot 7 persons; another high school student goes to his high school and kills several students because his girlfriend left him. Whatever the reason for imprisonment the effect is the same. Being in prison can mean being controlled by four walls and unable to see beyond them. It can mean being unable to move. It is a hopeless situation.

But we are told today by Isaiah that this does not have to be. Isaiah encourages his friends. He is encouraging the people to be strong and not be afraid. God will strengthened the feeble and the weak, restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, movement to the lame. Sorrow will turn to joy. What seemed to be a lifeless desert will bloom with abundant flowers. Isaiah encourages us to believe that God can transform our lives.

Finally, in our Gospel, it is John the Baptist who is in need of encouragement. There comes a time in almost everyone’s life when a person wonders whether all the hard work and all the commitments are worth anything. Are you really making any difference in the world? Have you done with your life what you had hoped? Are you missing out on opportunities that you may have passed by? That seems to be John the Baptist’s frame of mind in today’s Gospel. He had taken up a radical, lifestyle, fasting, praying, calling people to repentance, preparing the way and watching for the Coming One. Was he right? So John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if all his preaching was right on target.

Jesus replies. Jesus says to the crowds that John was “more than a prophet” and that there has been “none greater than John the Baptist.” Presumably, this assurance is also conveyed to John, giving him heart to be able to quell the doubts and to endure patiently to the end. His sending the disciples with the big question allows Jesus to say simply, “Check it out.” Jesus then makes reference to the prophetic poem we hear from Isaiah in the First Reading. The blind see, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the mute speak and they become evidence for John’s disciples and Matthew’s readers that Jesus is the Messiah.

We, too, like Isaiah and St. James and John the Baptist should be encouraged by these readings. They remind us that our lives can also be transformed if we are patient and place our trust in God The message of Advent is that God is here. present among us-- not only 2000 years ago in the person of Jesus Christ but here in our everyday lives. We need only be prepared to recognized him.

With the Advent season more than half over, with Christmas less than 12 days away, it is time for us to deal with the prisons in which we have placed ourselves. Have we allowed ourselves to think of Jesus as unapproachable, ready to clean up and clear out the useless, powerless, helpless? Or is this Jesus the loving, forgiving, compassionate, gentle one who still is willing and able to heal the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf and the dead and all in our society who are considered as nuisances. Is he the sharer of our ups and downs, does he inspire us to do better and greater actions, to heal wounded and hurting hearts, intensely loveable and loving. Most of all , do we see ourselves as poor enough to have Jesus proclaim to us the good news that says we are good because God loves us, and not that God loves us because we are good.

In our second Bible reading today St. James encourages us to be patient because the coming of the Lord is at hand. But patience is usually difficult for everyone. Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience. Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. Patience is the companion of wisdom. Patience does not mean sitting back doing nothing. Like John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus, a farmer or gardener meticulously tills the soil, clears away the rocks and weeds, and carefully plants the seed. It takes both the hard work of the farmer and the gift of rain, over which one has no control, to produce the anticipated harvest. Patience is doing everything one can, while at the same time, relying utterly on the divine provider. The way to keep a firm heart in the waiting time. We must keep from complaining. Just as Jesus helped John’s disciples to see the evidence of God’s saving presence in their midst, we must look for the sprouts of hope that spring up even in the most parched desert. Expecting to see the desert bloom or roses in December, as did Juan Diego, whom we remember on this feast of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, we keep hope alive with patient endurance even in the midst of suffering and doubt.

Let our prayers and our Christmas greetings and our Christmas visits and our Christmas gifts these last days of Advent convince us that indeed Jesus is the one who is to come. He is the one who comes to feed us spiritually. Because Jesus is coming and in fact is already here in our midst at this Mass, we know for sure that we do not have to look for another Lord and Savior. Jesus is enough. Jesus is all we really need. Jesus IS the good news that we who are poor need to hear and then in turn proclaim over and over again.

Homily for the week of December 5, 2010

Second Sunday of Advent, 2010

Isaiah 11:1-10

Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17

Romans 15:4-9

Matthew 3:1-12

In 1996 a small child fell into a gorilla exhibit at a zoo in Chicago. A mother gorilla with her baby on her back went and scooped up the child and took him to a safe place. She guarded the child until the zookeeper could come and take him out through a metal door at the back of the exhibit. Such scenes surprise us. Gorillas are wild animals, and so our enemies. We observe them in zoos, but we do not live with them.

Our first reading, however, gives us a very different vision of the world and its wild animals. Isaiah is the one who wrote this reading. Isaiah has a dream or a vision of what it might be like in a world that Jesus talked about so often. In this world the baby will play by the cobra's den. The wolf will be the guest of the lamb. The leopard and the kid will lie down. The calf will eat with the lion, the cow and the bear will be neighbors.

This sounds like a children's book where animals do simple things together. But the truth is that this is what we long for. We long for a world filled with God or goodness or peace. Isaiah gives us a picture of a heaven of universal peace and justice. Who would not want to go to a place where the wolf is a guest of the lamb; where a calf and a young lion browse together; where the cow and the bear are neighbors; where the baby plays in the cobras den? This scene is especially appealing when people at the time of Isaiah were at war with each other. But this paradise can be ours if we truly follow the advice of John the Baptist in our today's Gospel.

Isaiah advises us to be patient in trying to live out gifts of understanding, justice, faith and goodness. The Jewish people had been conquered by a lot of outsiders, but Isaiah is hopeful. He says: God will intervene, be patient. He offers a day when human suffering would be healed and evil would disappear. But the people would have to trust God, and have to wait.

By the time that Matthew comes along, he tells us that most of our waiting has ended. God will finally send a person by the name of Jesus. A preacher by the name of John the Baptist arrives. He lives in the desert. John is the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth and the cousin of Jesus. He was born much after a woman would normally have a child. John the Baptist dressed himself in camel hair, and ate locust and honey. He lived much of his life in the desert.

In all of our Bible readings there are references to the desert. It seems that whenever anyone had to make an important choice, they spent time in prayer in the desert. John the Baptist went to the desert in order to be closer to God. The Jews learned to depend on God while in the desert. He gave them manna and quail to nourish them in their hunger and from a rock came water to quench their thirst. In the desert, John the Baptist learned to depend on God, and through him the cry to repent and make straight the paths to God would again resound.

John was concerned that those who follow him have a good life. He tells people that they have to repent. Repent means that we are sorry for anything bad we have done. REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AT HAND, he says. If we are to have a future, he says, we must reform our lives.

John's command to REPENT basically means this: Change our heart and our conscience about what is important in our life, and then change our life accordingly. We must be willing to turn our life around. Repent means we must shape up, reorganize, readjust, renew. We must repent, not because we are afraid of the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but because that is the only way that we will recognize Jesus when he comes.

Just in case we missed the point of John's sermon, we can read a little further in our Gospel and come to the very first sermon that Jesus himself gave. WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE JESUS PREACHED? The same point that John the Baptist gave. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, Jesus says.

There is much more that John and Jesus gave us in their sermons. But the message of this weekend in Advent is to Repent. To Repent is not one of our common expressions. To repent means to improve and renew our lives. But to repent is not easy.

For many of us to repent may mean to bring our actions back in line with those that Jesus taught us. Whenever we wonder what we should be doing, it would be great if we asked ourselves the question: WHAT WOULD JESUS DO IN THIS SITUATION? It is a reminder to do our best to live the values, ideals and virtues taught by Jesus. How would Jesus advise me to turn my life back to him? How do I witness at home, to my spouse, to my children, in my work, and in my parish? Do I understand that my example is powerful? I need to feel the urgency of fulfilling the mission that Christ has given me in my particular state in life. When I receive Holy Communion, I receive the food I need to help me in my mission.

None of us are prophets or preachers like John the Baptist. But each of us may seek to do as the Baptist demands. Through repentance we can rediscover the mercy of God. Through sorrow for our sinful ways, a sorrow that is eager to put right what we have disrupted, we can make straight the way of the Lord. The best way to judge ourselves is not by what rules we do or do not keep, but by how well we live out the gifts of the Holy Spirit already within us.

Often there are moments in our lives that seem like a desert, but it is in these moments that God brings us closer to him. We should not be afraid of experiencing dryness or difficulties in prayer because it is then when God helps us trust more in him. As we receive and send cards, as we buy gifts, as we put up Christmas decorations, let us remember whose birth it is Let each of these activities be used as a prayer to be thankful that we believe. It is only in this way that we will truly reform ourselves and prepare the way for the coming of Jesus.