Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

We gather together for Liturgy each Sunday and holy day.  Why?  Well, one reasona very important reasonis to give thanks to God for His many blessings.  Another reason, is to worship God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…and then, from our offerings and their work, we receive and share in a deep communion through the Body and Blood of Christ.  And a further reason: we enter into this, and every liturgy, so that our virtuous bond with God and His family may grow more solid, firm, steadfast and effective.

Be sure, that if these do not match our real reasons for being here each Sunday, then we must heed the warning issued by Our Lord in today’s gospel.  “Strive to enter through the narrow gate” is His challenge, but know that the path is narrow and many will not be strong enough.  Yes, we might say that we are doing right now the bare minimum that is required of those who wish to enter into the Kingdom of God, but then again, the bare minimum will surely not be enough.  Such a familiar plea, “But we ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets” will surely not be our ticket into God’s reign.  So, what more is required?  The “more” that is required is in the virtuous reasons for us being here today and every Lord’s Day.

Many of us can thank God well and worship God with reverence and awe, but it’s that third reason I mentioned earlier that catches us off-guard so many times each day and throughout our life.  And that’s what we must strive for: to become more and more bound with Almighty God in the mundane, the everyday, the simple…as well as the difficult.  Our goal, if we wish to reign with God, is to grow more and more like God: holy, merciful, just and right.  Maybe some examples might help:

• Do I feel truly grateful for the gift of Christ’s Body & Blood?  If I do, I will naturally tend to share such gifts and gratitude…maybe by bringing a canned good each week for our food pantry.
• Do I sense the calm of the Holy Spirit when I worship God?  If I do, maybe I can help to calm another who is in fear…bringing in gifts for our soldiers…defending another who is being bullied…seeking to serve the homeless by donating clothes.
• Do I desire the intimate communion of God?  If so, I need first to look at the intimacies I’m sharing in this human life…am I truly loving toward my spouse, siblings, friends and even enemies?  Do I feel a responsibility for the communities in which I live, from which I am blessed with the many challenges they make me face?

Here are some examples in my own life of how the gate is very narrow indeed and I may not find myself strong enough to enter:

• I need to be very careful not to judge others when I am asked to judge their actions or decisions
• I need to be more positive and encouraging…less critical and suspect…when I listen to what might be called, “the ramblings of politicians”
• Rather than becoming angry with policies of governments and the resulting injustices around the world (I think right now of Syria and Egypt, just to mention a few); instead, I need to transform my reaction to one of sorrow, yet seasoned with a hope that things can be better…that deep sorrow may be a response that many of us could benefit from
• Instead of becoming fed up and rightly disgusted by the senseless and tragic horrors we hear of so often, even in towns like our own, by children like our own (for example, the brutal killings of a jogger in Oklahoma and a WWII Vet in Spokane, in 2 separate instances, just this week alone); can’t these then inspire me to greater encourage families to please spend more and more valuable time with each other and share your lives more deeply with one another, thus helping all of usyoung and oldto better value every human life in its many beautiful forms
• I very much need to be more generous in my prayer for others, recalling welland in my heart of heartsthe many and varied petitions that people ask of me each week
• I need to let go of my own desires and my own misgivings and simply, plainly trust God more.  Often I try to explain away my reluctance, but there is no excuse for me not to jump into His holy life

You see, the gate is narrow for each of us who strive to enter it.  There are a multitude of very particular things that each one of us must overcome in order for each one of us to cling to the Lord…and to Him alone.  Only then, can the Kingdom of God begin to break upon us.

But be assured we do not do this alone, do we?  No, we do it within the context of our relational lives: in communion with good friends and healthy neighbors, wise elders and idealistic young people.  But here’s the greatest of helps: the Lord Jesus Christ himself invites us to follow after Himwherever He may lead.  He moves toward the Reign of God and the Kingdom of His Father…let us then, take nourishment in this Eucharist and solace in His promise: He will be with us always.

God love each of you.

Clearly, “persistence” is the word of the day.  Ask, seek and knock and we will receive, find and be welcomed.  But what is it exactly that will be given to us?  To illustrate, I have been praying for priest-friend these last days and his situation has not been resolved; a few months ago I buried a lovely parishionerJoAnne Gulloafter having prayed for and with her for years; a priest of our diocese is not recovering very well from being stricken with serious illness and he’s barely hanging on to his life.  For each of these and so many more things I’ve been praying, but when asking, seeking and knocking, I’m finding it almost impossible find the Lord’s response.  Yet, He still invites me to be persistent in prayer.  Why?

In today’s first reading, we hear of the immediate results of Abraham’s prayer: God promises to save Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of a mere ten righteous inhabitants.  So, what about God’s response in other instances?

I wonder if my prayer could be better framed: recall the Lord’s Prayer and our constant request that God’s will be done.  This might be significant: if my prayer is to be that God’s will be done in these many challenging situations, just what will God’s will look like?  I would suggest there are two important ingredients that help to shape God’s will.  First, I would hold that God’s will very much involves His desire for me (and, for that matter, every one of us) to experience LOVE.  To experience, feel and know that I am fully loved by God; to be able to grow in my love for God in return; to be able to freely love and be loved by others.  This is God’s greatness of will: that each of experience more and more fully LOVE.  Second, I believe that God’s will is that we also experience FAITHFULNESS.  At the core of the human soul, we desire a love that is faithful, enduring, unending, constant.  I desire your faithfulness, for example, when the bells of the church toll and you gather for the Eucharist; you desire my faithfulness to lead our prayer well; husbands and wives desire a steady and enduring faithfulness in their openness, their care & support, their cherishment of the other; children desire and long for the faithfulness of their parents; citizens desire faithfulness from government and society; and so on.  Even throughout the Scriptures we see examplestime and againof God’s faithfulness to us and to His promises for us.  So LOVE and FAITHFULNESS make up God’s will.

Back to this persistence in prayer embodied in today’s readings.  Note well that, in the end, Abraham did not receive the spirit of his petitions: Sodom and Gomorrah were completely destroyed.  Was it that God did not receive Abraham’s plea?  No, but in His will, God desires that goodness which, in this instance, is Justice.  As the citizens of those two cities did not desire God nor His will, justice demanded that a punishment be meted out.  In our Gospel, Jesus invites us to continue to ask, seek, and knock, but He never promised WHAT would be given, WHAT would be found.  Instead, it’s left open to the will of our heavenly Father.  And isn’t this crucial to our relationship with such a loving Father: that we trust His LOVE, His FAITHFULNESS, His GOODNESS toward us?

Finally, what of the various prayers I’ve been offering lately?

As we all know, the human condition always involves the struggle between good and evil, health and sickness, death and life.  So, when I accept that I cannot escape such struggle, when I finally can admit that I am not the all-powerful God, only then can I begin to rest in God’s goodly care and constant presence.  That when I am suffering, God is near; when my priest-friend is in such pain, God can now become the new source of his consolation and peace; when a couple is having difficulties in marriage, then humility, honesty and compassion can become new hallmarks in their love; when a parishioner dies, God’s will is accomplished in the resurrection of the dead.

Yes, God hears and answers our every prayer: we simply need to learn to see Him, trust Him, love Him…and His holy will…a will filled with LOVE and FAITHFULNESS!

May each of us experience the answers to our prayers, prayers that allow God’s will to come upon us, bless us, and remain close to us always.

Last month we dedicated our new stained glass window in the Chapel of St. Joseph.  Since then, some have commented on the many stories that are weaved into the various holy persons that are depicted.  Some, however, may still be unconvinced of the power and beauty that stained glass has to tell a story, but let’s consider the passage we’ve just heard from Luke’s gospel concerning the Good Samaritan.

Incidentally, my love of stained glass probably took root when about eighteen years ago I visited the Cathedral of Chartres (near Paris, France) and beheld the beauty of its world-renowned windows.  In one of the windows, the story of creation and the fall of man is interwoven with the narrative of the Good Samaritan.  Instead of merely giving us a parable of moral kindness and a rebuke of prejudice, that window reflected deeper theological truths that can be missed if we hear the story of the Samaritan outside of the context of our Catholic faith and tradition.

Recall how Jerusalem is always depicted as a heavenly city, God’s city, the city of salvation.  Remember, too, that at the dawn of creation, the Garden of Eden was God’s dwelling place with the human race.  We’ll also recall how Adam and Eve were expelled from God’s company, God’s dwelling, the Garden once they sinned against God.  Well, the unfortunate man in Jesus’ parable who makes his way from Jerusalem to Jericho represents the human race which has fallen from the glory of the heavenly city to the degradation of the city of sin.  Leaving God’s dwelling (Jerusalem), the traveler in our Gospel was vulnerable…and so we see how he falls in with robbers.  His conditionbeing half-deadcan now be seen to symbolize all of humanity after the fall: robbed of its dignity and rendered incapable of saving itself.  The first two to pass him bya priest and a Levitedon’t merely choose not to help, but are, in one sense, incapable of helping the victim.  This represents the incapacity of the law itself and ritual itself to save us from sin…more is needed in order for mankind to be rescued.

Then, a hated Samaritana half-breedstops because he is moved with pity.  He pours wine and oil into the sufferer’s sores.  This character represents now Jesus: God and man, who applies the balm and comfort of the Sacramentsthe wine of the Eucharist and the oil of baptism, confirmation and the anointing of the sickto the wounds of the sin-sick soul.  Even more, the Samaritan brings the poor man to an inn and offers to pay for his treatment, thus continuing his care for the victim until the man is restored to full health.  Well, recall that the Church calls Christ “the Redeemer of the world”.  The word “redemption” means quite literally “to buy back” and “to pay for”.  And Jesus, bearing the burden for our sins on the cross, He has paid our debt, he has bought us back.

We are the victim fallen in with robbers.  We are the ones who dwell outside of the heavenly city.  We are the ones who need another to pay our debt.  Our human experiences, as well as our faith, inform us of who we are.  But our faith also tells us that we have One who can save us, heal us and restore us.

When you look at the stained glass in our chapel, just like the window of Chartres Cathedral, there’s more than meets the eye: there’s a depth of story there…there’s a faith and holiness which are uncovered and revealed.  It just takes time and reflection: pondering the depths of our human experience and then reflecting on the glory of God revealed throughout our faith.

May the mercy of God comfort us; may the lives of the saints inspire us; and may our desire to live in and with God always inspire and invite us into His dwelling among the human race.

Just this week, Pope Francis issued his first encyclical called “The Light of Faith” which echoed, among other things, the importance of newly evangelizing the world and its peoples.

I’m not sure about each of you, but I am aware that many American Catholics don’t understand this “new evangelization”, wondering why and how we are to accomplish it, squeamish about the prospect of going door-to-door and preaching the Good News to total strangers (by the way, not necessarily what we mean).

Instead, consider the gift of faith that you first received in Baptism and that you continually receive by the grace of the Sacraments or by your humble, simple prayers offered each day.  That gift of faith is a gift from God intended to build us up into His people.  And if we are to be “His people”, we see that we are not isolated or alone, but rather each of us enters into a kind of spiritual community, easily witnessed by our gathering together as a parish each Sunday, but more difficult to see when we go forth from here, dispersed into our own elements of the world…in our jobs, our homes, among our friends, in our own particular schools, our own individual works, etc.  And it is in those often-times more difficult places where…

• our faith might be tucked away for fear of ridicule;
• our faith might not challenge the world for fear of offending another;
• our faith might take a backseat so that we don’t have to risk someone identifying us as a Catholic when we’re engaged in sinful behavior.

I am all too aware of these fears, because I struggle with them as well…

• it’s difficult to propose faith as a response to anything in a world that doesn’t care about it;
• it’s challenging to propose faith to a culture that allows people to think without logic or reason, and then celebrates their ideas as equal or worthy of consideration, or even masterful;
• it’s nearly impossible to propose faith in a society where the three people who matter most are “me”, “myself”, and “I”…to the extreme detriment of caring for, or even considering ‘the other’ and their good.

Now that sounds pretty dire, I know.  But it’s the world in which we live, isn’t it?  And if that’s the case, then the world needs some kind of remedy, some kind of aide to see the errors and to feel invited again into correction, into “the Good”.

In today’s second reading, St. Paul expresses that because he has faith in Jesus Christcrucified and raisedthat faith makes him a new creation.  Instead of any other demand (like circumcision) or any work that HE must do, St. Paul is recreated by God…Paul is made new when God deposits faith into Paul…as faith enters into his heart and flows through his whole being.  Note well: his whole being is now consumed in Christ, thus, every aspect of his life is now affected properly by faith.  His words, his gestures, his writings, his thoughts, his desires, his actions…everything now must have the trace of Jesus Christ sewn throughout.  So, for example, he can’t separate and compartmentalize the issues of faith away from the issues of the world.  He can’t, for example, say his morning prayers and then go out and harm another person; he can’t, on one hand, extol the virtue of justice and then, on the other hand, act cruelly or unjustly toward another.  So, St. Paul is one new man because he has now been brought to faith in Christ Jesus, and that new man is rightly and completely saturated by Christ and holiness.

Will he be tempted away from faith?  You bet, but he begs others who would wish him ill: “from now on, let no one make troubles for me; for I bear the marks of Jesus on my body.”  In other words, Paul wants to bear those marks of faith…he wants to show Jesus to others…he wants to leave his sin behind and live in the peace of Christ with everyone.  Even amidst discomfort, fear, ridicule or torture, Paul’s faith now charges him to live according to faith…always and everywhere.

Now, by extension, because of our own baptism and growth in faith, each one of us, too, is a new creation.  Every person who comes into contact with the Holy Trinity in baptism thus receives the gift of faith from God.  Each of us, then, is called into the communion of God’s family.  And that family begs us for our full participation, our clear witness to faith, our help to build up and protect this growing family.  Just like Paul, we too are fully and wholly enflamed with the gift of faith, thus

• we cannot set it aside at one point and pick it up at another;
• we can’t profess it when convenient, but ignore it when difficult;
• we can’t, on the one hand, discard it when its costly, and then, on the other hand, cling to it when we need its comfort, its support, or its truth;
• we can’t “live as I wish” and then expect faith to purchase our ticket into the heavenly kingdom at our death.

What we can do, however, is learn how to trust Him and receive His love, and then live anew in the faith of Christ Jesus.  What do I mean by this?

If we are to grow this family of faith and respond to the invitation that God issues to all, then we have to consider:

• what (or WHO) we’re inviting others into;
• how we’re inviting them;
• why we’re inviting them.

We’re inviting them into a living and rewarding faith.  We’re sharing with them the relationship that God has built in each one of us who have faith.  We’re expressing the fact that “God is our GOOD…and God is ALL GOOD”, …God is the good that everyone seeks…He is the Good that everyone can find…and we find Him in His Church.

So, how then, do we invite them?  This is the difficult part: we invite as God invites…in LOVE.  If, for example, I say to another person that if they don’t practice faith they’ll go to hell, that doesn’t sound too inviting, does it?  If I come to Church with a scowl, witnesses of my entry won’t want to follow, will they?  If I chastise and condemn sinners during the week, this tells others something very clear…and it’s not very inviting.

This is not to say, that we need to be without sin in order to invite others.  But our own humility, our own sorrow when we’re wrong, our own joy about faith and God and virtue, our own patience with ourselves and others…all these are kindly and gentle invitations for others to see us for who we are: a sinful people, yes, but nevertheless a people of love, in love with God.

Look at all of the encounters people had with the Lord throughout the Gospels: not onenot a single oneincluded Jesus condemning them.  Rather, He always looked at them with love, and encouraged them to follow Him.

Finally, why would we invite others to come to faith?  Maybe that’s the wrong question: instead why wouldn’t we invite others to faith?  If we’ve discovered ‘the Good’ in faith, then it’s only natural for us to share that Good News.  Look at our Gospel: it’s God who invites, we are simply sent to proclaim Him, to show His truth to the world…a world that is oftentimes hostile, but still needy for such a remedy.  We can show the world a joy that it lacks, a true and enduring peace that is missing, a forgiveness that it only lightly grasps, and a love that is forever eternal and full.

So like the disciples of our gospel, we too will be sent…and are sent at the end of each Mass when we’re told to “Go forth, go and announce the Gospel of the Lord, Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”  We are sent to proclaim His name, to profess our faith, and to build up the Kingdom of God in our midst.

This…is our New Evangelization.

May God go with you always, as your Guide and your Love.

When I was eleven I had this rough and tumble Schwinn bike.  I thought it was the toughest thing on wheels until my mom unknowingly backed the station wagon right over it as it lay on the ground in the driveway.  Within just a few days I realized the torture of not having a bike anymore and so I took on tons of extra chores and saved up enough money that I eventually got another bike…but with this one, I always made sure it was on the kickstand!  I kept it well-oiled, clean, and in tip-top shape because I had worked really hard for it and it was valuable to me…I was finally free again to have fun with my friends!

For each us, when something is really important, really valuable to us, we’ve learned to care for and protect it.  Whether it’s a house, a car, an investment portfolio…whatever the case might be, we always give it extra special care, don’t we?  If we want that great vacation, we save, we invest, we scrimp…and we let nothing deter us.

Well, in today’s readings, we are asked to consider the invitation from God that we be His disciples.  God, in His great love and generosity, desires us to follow him in order that we might share in the fullness of His life always.  Consider the beginning of today’s gospel: Jesus resolutely determines to go to Jerusalem.  Remember, Jerusalem is where his mission is fulfilled: he is rejected by all and He offers His life for us so that we might have life in its fullness.  We see the same rejection from the people of the Samaritan village, but Jesus is not deterred.  In Jerusalem, Jesus continues without distraction toward His paschal mystery.  On the way, He invites and challenges many not to be concerned with the dead or with family, wealth, history or means, but simply to proclaim the reign of God always and everywhere.

Yes, discipleship is about risk and abandoning ourselves to the Lord.  But if we wish to dwell in God’s reign…if we desire to share eternal life, then the same invitation, tasks, challenges, risks and demands belong to us…but so too do the rewards!  There is no easy way, but there is still the way that leads to life with God. That way will not be without struggle or rejection, but with our resolve to follow after Him because of the great and awesome reward that is promised is very important, very valuable to us who have faith.

I was willing to work my tail off, to scrimp and save for another bike because it connected me to friends and tons of fun.  Now, because of my faithmy trust in God’s faithful promise to share His life with me always, and my desire to share my life with Himit behooves me to resolutely proclaim the reign of God, to constantly be aware of my faults, to reflect regularly on my desire to be holy, because this is so important, so valuable to me.

Ultimately, Jesus reigns as our king in God’s Kingdom.  From rejection and ridicule, to life eternal: may these be so valuable and important to you as well as to live in discipleship.

God love you always.