Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

By Deacon John Cronin:

The most fruitful activity in life is to receive the Lord.

To receive His true presence.

To be present to Him.

Last week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan,

We were called to love our neighbor with extraordinary hospitality.

With Martha and Mary, we’re called to exercise hospitality again,

But this time in receiving the Lord.

 

Most of us identify with Martha:

How could Mary leave her to do all that work?!

And what’s with Jesus taking Mary’s side?!

 

But is He taking sides?

He loves Martha tenderly,

And he gently corrects her,

Not for her busy work to serve Him,

But for accusing Mary of being inhospitable:

She says, “Lord, do you not care

That my sister has left me by myself to do the serving?”

This is not so much a question as it is an accusation.

It reminds me of St. Mark’s account of Jesus’ calming the stormy sea.

Jesus slept in the boat

while the disciples in the boat with him feared the terrible storm.

They woke him with an accusatory tone:

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

He rebukes the wind and sea:  “Quiet!  Be still!”

The rebuke is really of the disciples’ lack of faith in his Saving presence.

The storms of our lives will never be still

if we don’t trust Jesus to steer our boat.

Mary shows that trust, sitting at Jesus’ feet.

She’s hospitable by simply being with him,

Totally present to him.

 

The most fruitful activity in our lives is to be still;

To be free of distraction,

And receive the Lord’s presence.

To be fully present to him.

 

Martha’s busy activity for the Lord was good.

But in her work, she left Jesus alone.

Her busy preoccupation made her feel alone.

In her isolated work, she grew anxious and worried.

 

While all the stuff Martha did was good,

Jesus challenges us to choose the better part of that work:

The gift of self.

To simply be present to Him,

And to any of our loved ones.

Relying on our own work without Jesus is futile.

But activity anchored in Jesus’ presence is very assuring.

If we cling to His Love we will not perish.

 

One of my earliest memories of my father was when I was about 4 years old.

In the longer days of summer,

He had a routine of taking me for a walk after dinner.

It was only to the end of the street,

But I vividly remember him holding my tiny hand in his.

I remember the joy and security of his presence.

This simple presence mattered,

More than any of the elaborate journeys on vacations

whose distractions competed for his presence.

 

So I pray that we may be still.

That we Approach Jesus with open ears and open hands.

Receive him with our whole being.

With true hospitality.

 

In this Mass today, we Receive the Lord.:

We receive his Word,

And his Body in the Bread of Eternal Life.

 

He gives us the better part:  himself.

May we do the same:  give of ourselves.

(NOT just our stuff) but ourselves…

To Him, and to one another.

I hope you can call to mind someone who really gave themselves to you,

Who didn’t have to plan an elaborate extravaganza for you,

But who was totally present to you.

Who walked with you on your journey.

Not to the hustle and bustle of exotic destinations,

But simply to the edge of the sidewalk close to home.

 

Yes, we are called to do good works with our hands,

But if they are truly good

If they are to bear lasting fruit,

They are attached to the Vine  

  to the loving presence of Jesus Christ.

Our good works are done by the power of His Hands.

Our little hands, held in His.

By Deacon John Cronin:

In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges us to do three things:

1)         To see,

2)         To be moved with compassion

3)         To act with mercy.

Most Church-goers want to be holy.

To be set apart in the service of God’s Love.

The lawyer the supposed “expert” on God’s law thinks he’s holy.

He definitely feels set apart.

And He’d hate to associate with someone as “unclean” as a Samaritan.

He knew of the law:  to love God and neighbor.

But that was just all up in his head,

He didn’t hold this love in his heart.

He used the law to give himself social status,

To elevate himself above others.

But even Moses,

the great prophet of the Law, begged his people:

“Heed the voice of the Lord… with all your heart and all your soul.”

 

We aren’t here to beat up on the pious Jews of Jesus’ day.

There’s a temptation for any good person to act like the lawyer.

To twist God’s law into a way of excluding others.

To judge others as less loved by God than us.

To avoid them.

To look the other way.

 

But Jesus says:  Not so fast!

Look here!

Look in the ditch!

Who do you see?

 

When I was in college in New York City,

my friends and I passed by the homeless several times a day.

There seemed to be more beggars than taxi cabs on Broadway.

While we may have smelled them, we didn’t see them.

We’d be going about our business

Deep in conversation

And without a break in the action

We’d just sidestep a human being in need,

like he’s a hole in the sidewalk.

 

In baptism, we are called to be holy.

To love as God loves.

And we cannot love God without loving our neighbor.

Especially the neighbor we really don’t like.

We all have them.

You know:  The one it’s  R E A L L Y    I N C O N V E N I E N T  to love.

But Every person is born in the image of God.

Do the people we meet see the face of the Invisible God in Us?

The face of Jesus?

The face of Mercy?

 

We all try to do the right thing,

And I bet we can see mercy in most of our neighbors…

 

We’re called to be Jesus for others.

Most of us get that.

But a real challenge is to remember where else Jesus is:

We see our Lord in the faces of those in desperate need:

The poor,

The lost

The outcast

Or Just those odd people in our lives it’s so hard to love.

 

I invite you to consider Jesus as that man in the ditch.

The one desperately seeking our love and compassion.

Jesus reconciled the whole world to himself

by the Blood of His Cross,

by His perfect Compassion.

So the next time it’s hard to love,

See Jesus there, calling you,

Be moved with compassion, answering his call,

And act mercifully, growing in the joy of his Love.

 

It’s easy to be the lawyer and make excuses.

To ignore the inner tug of our hearts.

To deaden our consciences.

To turn away from God.

To treat a neighbor in need like just another hole in the sidewalk.

 

But we all need God’s mercy.

And we’re closest to the God of Mercy when we step into that ditch.

It’s easy to harden our hearts.

But we know in our God-given hearts

In His merciful love for each of us:

He is everywhere in this world.

And the first place we’ll find him…

Is lying in that ditch.

The world cries out for God’s mercy.

Be that mercy for those in desperate need of it.

Ignore the excuses for looking the other way.

For we just might miss the face of God-in-our-midst.

By Deacon John Cronin:

This weekend we celebrate Independence Day.

We rejoice in our freedom from tyranny.

But the worst kind of tyranny lies in the neglect of our own freedom.

As Christians, we are called to celebrate our independence every day.

Not independence from God, but from sin and death.

We are given the gift of independence by being totally dependent!

Dependent on Jesus.

On his power.

On his love.

On his Cross and resurrection.

He sets us free.

We are a people who love freedom and self-rule.

But Jesus tells us we cannot be truly free until we let God rule.

If we love God, our lives are really not our own.

We are caretakers of his amazing gift of life.

Over twenty years ago, I went to Manhattan College.

I was young, on a full scholarship, and had the world at my feet.

I thought I was free.

I thought I was the ruler of my own little Kingdom.

But the more I ignored God…

… the more I chased freedom from Him,

… the more miserable and enslaved I became.

I had run away from an earlier call to labor in His vineyard.

I placed myself into a desolate land of exile among my selfish and petty pleasures.

Exile from true joy and satisfaction in God.

At Manhattan, I had a friend:  Eugene Hamilton.

He was faithful to the Mass.

He was humble and kind.

And he exuded peace and contentment.

I didn’t get it!

How can a guy so bogged down by obedience to Christ and His Church be so free and happy?

[PAUSE]

Over the years, I lost contact with him.

But something about him moved me to remember my calling.

God planted one of the seeds of my salvation by the work of Eugene’s labors.

He’d never know the fruit of his labors.

After I came back to the loving arms of Jesus and Mother Church,

I heard that Eugene was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

He was only halfway through Seminary in New York.

He wouldn’t be able to finish.

But GOD, who began his good work in Eugene, would bring it to fulfillment.

All he wanted was to serve God as a priest,

To announce Jesus and His Kingdom.

To labor in His vineyard.

Rome gave permission for him to be ordained early.

You can read about his amazing life in the book called: “A Priest Forever”.

Death could not undo the life Eugene clinged to in Christ Jesus.

He let God rule the Kingdom.

He embraced his freedom in the Cross.

His joy and peace only grew stronger in his weakness.

We are called every day to let Christ rule the Kingdom,

No matter what suffering we endure,

Our pain and brokenness can be overcome by Jesus’s strength.

My prayer is that we truly love Jesus.

Because it is the only thing that truly satisfies the human heart.

.           May we rest assured in our call to a life of tremendous rejoicing.

Each day we are invited to a life of independence from sin and death.

A life of total dependence on the loving power of Jesus.

If we bull-doze our way through life in sinful pride

If we start to think freedom means that We are the gods of our own kingdoms,

Then we are saying NO to our own peace and happiness.

Eugene chose life in the face of death.

In my dissipated youth, I was more dead than Eugene lying in that coffin in the seminary chapel.

But Eugene helped me to see the beauty of God in my weakness.

If we realize our weakness our dependence on the author of life,

We are saying YES to our own happiness.

The Spirit of the Risen Lord penetrates the weakest hearts,

He gives us a new heart.

He gives us His own heart.

Admitting our weakness invites God to be our strength.

So rejoice!

Be free!

Let Jesus rule the Kingdom.

Join in His labor of love.

Taste his love in His body and Blood.

The blood that saves us.

That makes our weakness our greatest strength.

The strength of the Risen Lord who gives us everything worth having.

By Deacon John Cronin:

Today, Kellan Murphy Ryan will join the baptized.

He becomes one of the “children of God in Christ Jesus.”

We are all one in Christ Jesus.  So what does that mean?  [pause]

Jesus tries to explain this to his Apostles, but it’s not really sinking in yet.

He tells them that yes  he is the Messiah, but not like they imagined.

Many hoped for a political Messiah, who would defeat Roman occupation and make Israel a great earthly power.

But this view of an Emperor Jesus holds a fundamental flaw:

power is not for us to grab for ourselves especially by using the Son of God to do it.

The only power that lasts is the power of God.  And God is Love.

It is very easy to forget God.

We are very eager to control our own little worlds.

But God gave us the world.

He gave us our life.

He gave us our capacities to love.

And ————– he gave Katelyn and Paul, the amazing gift of little Kellan.

Jesus tells the Apostles the only path to true and lasting life is by denying ourselves.

The Psalm today is quite beautiful:

It tells how the human heart can only be satisfied under the shadow of God’s wings.

Under His loving power.

We are a people who were born thirsting for God.

Because we are made from God’s love.

And it’s not just our souls thirsting for heaven.

It’s our bodies: here and now, in the flesh:

pining and thirsting “like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.”

Today, that thirst for God, has gathered us together in this place.

Today, we deny ourselves petty and passing pleasures that only leave us more thirsty and empty. We come as Kellan comes to the font of everlasting life.

We deny our old selves, isolated from God by sin and selfishness and pride.

We come here to be fed the food that lasts forever:  the Body of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said:  “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

Now, none of us have a death wish.

Jesus is telling us how to live.  How to really be alive.

We’ll never be truly satisfied… …never filled with lasting joy,

until we are all-in.  Until we commit ourselves entirely to the Love of God.

Jesus is our bridge to that love.

We all know this in our bones.

Just think about Kellan’s parents.

Paul and Katelyn, like any parent, wants the best for their child.

What parent in their right mind …

What parent touched by the love of God…

Wouldn’t do anything,   give anything —  even their own lives

if it meant their beloved child would thrive in the world.

That is the love of God.

The unrelenting devotion us as his beloved children.

He would give anything, even his only begotten Son on the Cross,

so that we may truly live.

In baptism, we join Christ, flesh and spirit.  Body and soul.

Our old thirsty selves are washed away.

The waters of baptism quench our thirsts.

Together, we are one body.  We have put on Christ.

We live for the love of God.

He gives us all that is good in our lives.

Katelyn and Paul bring Kellan to the life-giving water today.

Kellan will join us in putting on Christ.

In Christ, no cross we must bear in this world, can ever rob us of our true happiness.

In Christ, when Kellan begins to thirst,

he will have his parents —– his Godparents —– and all of his brothers and sisters in this Church,

to help him know from where he can drink and be satisfied.

Praise be to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

By Deacon John Cronin:

Tomorrow is Memorial Day.

The day our nation is called to remember.

We remember the armed forces who died for our freedom.

Who died so we may live.

 

This year, Memorial Day Weekend happens to fall on the Feast of Corpus Christi

The Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ.

We here today, are called to remember the hero of heroes:  Jesus Christ.

He died so that we all may live.

He made the ultimate sacrifice of his body and blood so we can be freed from death itself.

It is good to remember our dead.

But may we especially remember Jesus’ death.

Because his death offers life to us all, including our fallen heroes.

 

Every time we come to Mass, we hear the words of Jesus the night before he died:

“This is my body that is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.”

As disciples, we receive the true presence of our God in this bread and wine of Holy Communion.

 

As I receive the Eucharist today,

I will ask Jesus to help me remember his perfect love.

His total gift of self so that we may truly live.

So that we like the 5,000 may eat and be truly satisfied.

 

Since the beginning of time, people have gotten into trouble because they forget.

They forget who they really are.

Who really satisfies them.

We are the beloved Children of God.

God gives us all that we truly need and more.

We may want something else entirely.

But God offers us what we truly need.

In my own life, I have found this easy to forget.

The more I chased after shiny apples, the hungrier I became.

We separate ourselves from God, and forget the taste of His love.

But Jesus came to us in our deserted places.

He took on flesh so we may reunite with the God who gave us life and love.

He asks us to remember that we are God’s beloved.

Right here  ——  Right now.

Jesus wants to feed us his Body and Blood.

He wants us to be satisfied with a foretaste of the heavenly banquet here on earth.

Can we let go of our anxieties and remember him?

To remember the love that death itself cannot stop?

 

As young children grow, they suffer what is called separation anxiety.

They grow fearful and insecure when separated from their parents.

As we grow, we form healthy friendships and are able to leave our parents.

We are secure in adulthood only if we remember.

Remember the love of our parents.

 

The Body and Blood of Christ is offered here today to help us remember Jesus’ love.

We only grow anxious when we forget and feel deserted.

The Apostles themselves grew anxious in the deserted place with the 5,000.

Their reaction was to send the hungry away.

But Jesus told his disciples:

“Give them some food yourselves.”

“Give them some food yourselves.”

If we are fed by Jesus’ love in the Eucharist,

Then we can bring that love into the deserted places of our daily lives.

If we remember his love as our anchor in life, we can help feed the hungry ourselves.

If we dare to perform acts of loving kindness, Jesus will supply more than we had ever dreamed of.

We will be truly satisfied.

 

So let us pray for our dead today.

But my prayer for you and for me is that we are truly fed in the Holy Eucharist.

And that we can bring the love of Jesus to those who still hunger for Him.

So, together, we are secure in the one body of Christ.