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homily – December 23

Sunday, December 23rd, 2007

Matthew 1:18-24

In our first reading and in our gospel we have these words, ‘look, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel, God is with us.’

When Isaiah wrote these words he was not referring to Jesus. He was trying to encourage a frightened king named Ahaz. Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel had entered into an alliance against the southern kingdom of Judah. Together they lay siege to the city of Jerusalem and things were not going well for Ahaz. Isaiah was trying to encourage the king to trust in God. He gives him this famous sign, a sign the king distrusted. ‘A young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel’ The young woman was in fact Ahaz’s wife and her yet born baby would be sign that the Davidic line of kings would continue, would survive this attack from the north. The yet born baby would be a sign that God is with his people, a proof God did not abandon His people.

Centuries later when Matthew wrote his gospel he was writing for a Jewish Christian community, a community seen as apostates, traitors to the ancient faith of Israel. Their decision to follow Christ split families, caused them to be driven out of their synagogues, made them outcasts. Matthew wrote his gospel to convince his community that by accepting Jesus as Messiah they were being faithful to their Jewish heritage. In Matthew’s telling of the birth of Jesus and Joseph’s dream and his willingness to take the pregnant Mary as his wife he quotes Isaiah famous lines about the young pregnant woman having a baby to be named Emmanuel – God with us.

Matthew’s use of these words is far removed from what Isaiah originally intended. – Isaiah was thinking only of the immediate political situation and of his certainty that God would shortly intervene on the side of King Ahaz. But the message was true for the people of Isaiah’s time and the people of Matthew’s time. God is with us. Mathew’s community needed that assurance. It was under great pressure to return to their Jewish faith – they were a persecuted people. Matthew described the very condition of their lives when he wrote, ‘you will be handed over to the authorities, brought before judges,’ driven out by their own families. These good people needed to hear the uplifting news, “God is with us”. God is with us in Jesus, the Christ, Jesus descended from David according to the flesh.

The Christmas season is a very exciting, joyful time for many people. It really is a great time. But some people find it difficult to catch the spirit of the time. They are burdened with many troubles. People who have or had a death in the family at this time of the year find it hard to be merry and bright. The words “merry Christmas” stick in their throats. For families dealing with serious illness, unemployment, separation, this is not the best time of the year. For persons struggling with the darkness of depression, this is not the best time of the year. That’s why the words of Isaiah and Matthew are so important for such people to hear – God is with us. God is with us in our times of grief and sorrow, God is with us even when we have no idea of what to do or how to cope with the pressures of our lives. God is with us in our pain and hurt no matter what their source – God is with us even if we are more convinced of His absence than His presence. God is with us.

We can hope that in its wisdom the Church chose these readings just for such people.

As we continue to celebrate this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for all others who, because of the stressful circumstances of their lives, need to hear the consoling and truth filled words of today’s scripture: God is with us.

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homily – December 16

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Matthew 11:2-11

I’d like all of us to reflect on the situation we find in today’s gospel. John the Baptist is in prison. He ended up behind bars because he was bold enough to tell King Herod he was living in a sinful marriage, married to his brother’s wife. John found himself at the mercy of a fickle king and a vengeful queen. John may have felt his life and his mission were falling apart; things weren’t going as he had hoped.

John was human like the rest of us. He liked having a following, crowds who listened to his every word. He was happy with all those people who repented and were baptized. He was proud of his band of disciples. John knew his mission was to prepare the way of the one who would come after him – he knew he was never meant to be the ‘main attraction’. But being human it wasn’t easy for him to let go of his popularity, his recognition as a prophet. Even though he sent his own disciples to Jesus, it probably pained him to see them go.

Scholars have different opinions as to whether John’s question “are you He Who is to come or should we look for another?” was to help his disciples to follow Jesus more closely or whether it was for his own personal assurance – have I been on the right track? John’s preaching was rather severe, pretty black and white. Jesus was more nuanced, gentler. Did John imagine Jesus was watering down the call for repentance, the call for greater fidelity to God? In those long days and frightful nights in prison, uncertain of his own future did John wonder ‘did I do the right thing? did I say the right words?’ Was John troubled by second guessing his life’s work?

Jesus’ answer to John disciples, an answer Jesus meant John to hear, points to the very works Jesus was doing. Works that point to the very intimate presence of God in the lives of the people, works Isaiah described to the beaten, discouraged people of his times to prove to them ‘ here is your God’. “the eyes of the blind shall be open, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame shall leap like the deer, the tongues of the speechless sing for joy.” Jesus message to John was, John you are not a failure, John you did the right thing.

I think there can be times in all our lives when we can relate to the feelings of doubt and bewilderment John endured in his prison cell. It’s often been called a mid-life crisis. When we look at how we’ve lived our lives, when we think of the decisions we’ve made or failed to make, when we think back on the unfulfilled dreams we’ve had for ourselves or for others, when we dreamed dreams that didn’t come true, we can often wonder and worry ‘have I wasted my life? Has it been worthwhile?’

How many of you who are grandparents worry about un-baptized grandchildren who are denied any contact with a faith that has been in the family for countless generations? How many of you are hurt because sons and daughters no longer live a faith life you tried so hard to pass on to them? Recently I was at a funeral in a Baptist church. The minister used the example of a relay race in which the baton of the faith is passed on from generation to generation and wondered, from his own pastoral experience, how often that baton is dropped by this generation and worried that it may never be picked up again.

These are John the Baptist times of our lives. I’ve mentioned before, we are all mistake making beings, no one bats 1000. We are all good people trying to do the best we can. In our times of doubt we should look to the good we’ve done, the love we’ve shown. We are being unfair to ourselves when we burden ourselves with the responsibility for the decisions other people have made in their lives.

Are you the one who is to come or should be look for another? Jesus’ reply was to point to the signs of God’s presence in the lives of the people, signs of love and healing and growth. When in our own way we ask the question, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another”? Did I do the right things, was I on the right track, did I make the right decision? I think He would have us be honest about the good we’ve done, the love we’ve shown, the healing we’ve brought about. I think He would encourage us to see the good and the generosity and the love in the lives of those who did not turn out as we would wished them to and appreciate the fact that they are on their own journey to God, a journey far different than our own, but a journey none the less.

As we continue to celebrate this Mass with the fearful, doubtful John the Baptist before us, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that in our own times of doubt and wonder we be blessed with the conviction, a confidence we did the best we could and leave the rest in hands of God – Who knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us better than we love ourselves.

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homily – November 18

Sunday, November 18th, 2007

Luke 21:7-19

Luke’s description of the destruction of the Temple and the persecution of the followers of Jesus was written around 80 AD. What he describes in today’s gospel had already taken place in 70 AD when the Emperor Titus destroyed the Temple and the Holy City and carried most of its citizens off in slavery. For the Jewish people destruction of the Temple was akin to the end of the world. The temple was their pride and joy and it was the dwelling place of God.

Too often buildings and monuments can take on a life of their own. We imagine they will always be there, always a part of our lives. We can’t imagine life without them. Many in the parish felt that way about our former St. Gabriel’s. It pained them to see it being torn down. Last September and October, as I celebrated morning Mass I looked out our window and saw a monastery and church that were part and parcel of my life since 1960 being demolished. It wasn’t easy to watch. Even the joy of having our new church blessed and dedicated by Cardinal Ambrozic a year ago tomorrow didn’t change my memories or feelings.

But a building is a building and it is meant to serve the needs of people. The people give a building its meaning. We are grateful for our beautiful new church building. But personally I am more grateful for you good and beautiful people of St. Gabriel’s who are the church. As I keep telling the children in school, the people are the church, not the building. In his first letter St. Peter tells the community to which he was writing that they are living stones meant to make a spiritual house in which God is praised. And Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.”

Our church will never be completed in the sense that we can never give up trying to be ‘church’. Our parish motto is ‘belonging, believing, becoming’. These are action words. So we never give up being ‘living stones’ trying to be a family of faith, love and service, we never give up trying to be ‘living stones” meant to make a spiritual house in which God is praised. We never give up trying to be ‘living stones’ welcoming stones ready to accept everyone who comes in our doors. We never give up being living stones who respond generously to the needs of others. We never give up being living stones willing to grow to full maturity in Christ by taking advantage of adult learning programs offered in the parish. We never give up being living stones at every Mass we celebrate when we participate as fully as we can in prayers and hymns of the Mass.

One of the remarks Cardinal Ambrozic made last year when he dedicated this building was about our choir – a choir made up of young and old and people of diverse cultural backgrounds. He said ‘your choir sounds like a choir.’ He didn’t mention the organist. But any choir, any cantor, is meant to help us in our celebration of the Mass, not entertain us. Our celebration of Mass is all that it meant to be – when we ‘living stones’ are fully involved – answering the prayers, singing the hymns. I suggest that even if you feel you can’t sing you at least read the words of the hymn we are singing, for they have their own message.

Our building has been called ‘Canada’s first green church’. Our green church is meant to foster the greening of people and bring all of us to an awareness that we are living stones within the wider community of all creation. Within this green building we are meant to become more conscious of the beauty and fragility of creation and come to realize that the care and the healing of Earth is our God given duty.

As part of this celebration of our first anniversary I ask you to join with me in a short prayer in which we will promise to be ‘living stones’ meant to build a spiritual house in which God is praised especially through our willingness to really participate in each Mass, a spiritual house in which we become more and more conscious of our oneness with all of God’s good creation.

As we continue to celebrate this Mass we pray for ourselves and for each other that we remember ‘the people, you good people, are the church. May all of us as living stones continue to grow in belonging, believing and becoming.

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homily – November 11

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

Confirmation

I want to say a few words of our first reading from the Book of Maccabees and what it has to say to what we will be doing after the homily.

We have a powerful telling of the story of seven brothers and their mother who were willing to die rather than abandon their faith. King Antiochus from Antioch has ravaged Jerusalem and especially the temple and its treasures. He has left behind officials to subdue the Jewish people and force them to reject their customs and their God. This mother and her seven sons are killed for their faith in the God of life Who will raise them to a higher life, because they have remained faithful to living faithfully while on earth.

I hope you find the time to read a piece in the bulletin about the Passionist Bishop Eugene Basilkov from Bulgaria. Today is the 55th anniversary of his execution by the communists. He was imprisoned and pressured into establishing a national church which would be controlled by the government. Being faithful to his faith and the church he refused. He was shot and buried in a common grave. Like the Macabean mother and her seven sons Bishop Eugene was a martyr, a witness to the faith.

These two events, our first reading and this anniversary of Bishop Eugene’s death have much to say to the ceremony that follows the sermon. We will be having the enrollment ceremony for those young people of the parish who are asking to be confirmed.

Confirmation is that sacrament which is meant to strengthen, reinforce, and fortify the life into which we were born at Baptism. In the first centuries of the church most baptisms were adult baptisms and immediately after a person was baptized they were anointed with oil to strengthen them to live a faith which could cost them their lives. Then they received their first communion which was meant to nourish and sustain them in living out their commitment to Christ.

Confirmation is not an automatic thing. Students are not confirmed because they are in grade eight. Students must ask to be confirmed and there are certain things they are expected to do such as helping in the different ministries in the parish, to prepare themselves for this sacrament.

Personally I find this a very frustrating sacrament. The school and the parish go through so much to prepare these students for confirmation and often we wonder if it ever ‘takes’. Once they hit high school coming to Mass isn’t ‘cool’, they have better things to do and often they don’t have the example of their parents to follow. I was talking with a Rabbi a few years ago and he expressed the same frustration. He said, “We see Bar Mitzvah as an entrance into our community. But after the ceremony and the party our young people see it as an exit from the community.

Few of us remember our baptisms. Our parents and Godparents spoke on our behave stating our belief in God and our rejection of evil. But every Easter Sunday, which in the early church was ‘the’ day of baptisms, we are invited to speak in our own names and commit ourselves once again to trying to live fully the life that is ours through the passion, death and resurrection of Christ.

Today as these good young people prepare themselves for the sacrament of Confirmation, and with the powerful witness of faithfulness to their faith given us by a brave mother and her seven sons, the witness of a faithful shepherd Bishop Eugene – we pray for these students that they appreciate what they doing – that they always remain open to the love of God proven to us in the cross they receive – that they be faithful to that love. We can pray for ourselves that we be confirmed and strengthened in our faithfulness to Christ, Who was faithful to us, even to dying on the cross for us.

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homily – November 4

Sunday, November 4th, 2007

Wisdom 11:22-12:2

A couple of weeks ago someone sent me an e mail with an attachment titled,” A Fascinating Zoom In”. It was produced by NASA and we are invited to travel with NASA from the biggest to the smallest distances in the universe.

Our journey starts 10 million light years away in vast expanse of space. We work our way down through the light years into our own galaxy of the Milky Way. We journey 100 light years, then 10 light years and finally at 1 light year we catch sight of our sun. At 100 billion km we begin to see our solar system, at 10 billion km we see our solar system and at 100,000 km we see planet earth, much at the first astronaughts saw it. At 1000 km we zero in on Florida, at 10 km we can make out streets and lakes – and golf courses – at 100 km we can see what we might see from a helicopter – at 10 cm we see leaves on a tree – at 1 cm we see the structure of a leaf – at 100 microns we see the cells that make up the leaf and at 1 micron we can see the cell itself. We continue the journey, at 1000 angstroms we see the chromosomes of the cell and at 100 angstroms we see the DNA chain of the leaf. At 1 nanometre we see the atom of carbon, the basis of all life and at 10 picometres we see the atom orbit of the electrons and at 100 fermi we see the inner anaton. At one Fermi we see the surface of the neutron and our journey which started in the outer reaches of space ends at 100 atom metres where we see the quark.

To tell you the truth I don’t understand any of these terms and in a way the whole things sounds like the Negro spiritual, ‘your toe bone’s connected to your foot bone and your foot bone’s connected to your ankle bone’… and so on.

To watch this ‘fascinating zoom in’ is awesome. The author of our first reading had no such insight into cosmology as we have today but he could still look to an unpolluted sky and marvel at it all. Yet he knew that compared to the awesomeness of God the wonder before his eyes was like a speck that tips the scales, like a drop of morning dew that falls to the ground. He would say this not to belittle creation but just to keep things in perspective.

In the 4th century the church condemned a heresy called Manichaeism which taught that creation was divided into good and evil, light and darkness and the material creation was evil. In condemning this world view the church echoed the words of today’s first reading, “Lord you love all things that exist and detest none of the things you have made.” In other words all creation is good and all creation from the quark to the galaxy is loved by God.

Today we’ve come to know that all creation is connected, inter-related. No being, especially the human being stands alone, apart from other human beings apart from the rest of God’s good creation. We are one living body and when one part of the body suffers, we all suffer. We can see this as we witness the diminishment of planet earth. As I’ve mentioned before, we did not weave the web of life, we are a strand in the web and what we do to the web we do to ourselves. The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth and what we do to the earth we do to ourselves.

There’s not a day goes by that we don’t hear of some weather disaster or environmental crisis, glaciers melting, deserts spreading. It’s depressing. We can’t pray for a healing of the earth, we are the healers. In our own little way we can make a difference as we examine our own life styles, our consumerism, our buying habits, our trashing.

Planet earth will survive. This is not the first crisis it has had to deal with in its 5 billion years of existence and we will survive as well if we can just catch the truth of our first reading -Lord, you love all things that exist, you spare all things for they are yours, you who love the living.

As we continue to celebrate this Eucharist we can pray for ourselves and for each other that we be blessed with a deeper reverence and respect for all God’s creation, that we celebrate its wonder and appreciate its fragility.

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