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Homily – May 7, 2017

Sunday, May 7th, 2017

Today is the World Day of Prayer for vocations. We often hear of or read about the vocational crisis. There is a great shortage of priests, especially in Northern Europe and here in North America. Years ago Toronto would have as many as 40 priests being ordained. This year Cardinal Collins will ordain 4 men.

It is the same for religious communities. Our Passionist Communities in the States haven’t had an ordination in the past five years. Luckily we belong to an international community and so we are able to call on other Passionist communities for help to sustain the different ministries in which we are involved. The Passionists in the Philippines and in Kenya were willing to share their wealth with us by sending us Brando and John. After a lot of vetting Cardinal Collins invites priests from other dioceses to come and minister here.

There is a shortage of ordained priests that is world-wide but there is not a shortage of priests. All of you good people are priests because you are baptized. St. Peter wrote that because of our baptism we are all a chosen race, a royal priesthood called to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. This is called the priesthood of all the faithful, the priesthood of all believers.

You good people exercise your priesthood in so many different ways. For example a priest blesses people. Every time you show respect to another person, regardless of their sex, religion, racial origin or lifestyle you are blessing that person. A priest celebrates Mass; in thanksgiving he offers the body and blood of Christ at the altar. When your offer to God your prayers, works and sufferings of the day you are doing a priestly act. A priest preaches. When you try to live the teachings of Jesus in the way you relate to family members and friends you are doing a priestly work. A priest absolves sins in the sacrament of reconciliation. When you make peace, apologize to a person you’ve hurt and when you make up with someone who has hurt you in anyway, you are doing a priestly thing. A priest anoints the sick. When you are present to someone who is ill, house bound and lonely, you are a priest to that person. If you have a family member or a friend who is alienated from the Church for whatever reason or who live their lives as if God did not exist and you stick with that person, pray for that person and hope that by living your own religious conviction you may bring them back to God, you are doing a priestly thing. To be touched, loved, supported or forgiven by you, priest that you are, is to be touched, loved, supported and forgiven by Christ.

Can we think on this? If the members of the priesthood of all believers were living their priesthood as I’ve described it, might there be more men willing to take on the work of the ordained priesthood?

Today’s gospel is all about Jesus the Good Shepherd. Jesus calls himself a shepherd but he also calls the gatekeeper. I read a description of the Middle Eastern sheepherding practices that tie these two images together.

The sheepfold was a circular wall of stones, topped by barriers of briars and thorns.There was a small opening for the sheep to pass through. Once all the sheep were in, instead of closing a hinged gate the gatekeeper, who was probably one of the shepherds would lie across the entrance and sleep. No one could get in or out without going over his body. Christ the good shepherd laid down his life his sheep as a gatekeeper and as the one who died on the cross. So we pray on this good shepherd Sunday that Christ the Good Shepherd bless the church with shepherds after his own heart?

Pray for vocations.

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Homily – April 30, 2017

Sunday, April 30th, 2017

We can hear the disappointment in the voices of the two men going home to Emmaus after their Passover celebration in Jerusalem. They are telling their stranger companion about what happened in Jerusalem during the past days. Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word was brought down by the power people in the city, the temple priests. They had Jesus condemned and crucified.

Then they spoke of the own disappointment. They’d hope that Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel. They hoped Jesus would be the one who would turn things around, bring about the end of Roman control over their lives and bring them freedom. Their dreams went up in smoke. Some hysterical women were claiming Jesus was alive, but that was nonsense.

As Jesus carried his cross thru the streets of Jerusalem he was mocked and tormented by people along the way. How many of them had that same hope that Jesus, the teacher and wonder worker from Nazareth would be the one to redeem Israel shattered. They were frustrated and angry with Jesus whom they now saw as a fraud, a preacher who built them up only to let them down. They vent their anger at him as he struggled under the burden of the cross he carried.

In our time how many good men and woman have had their faith shattered if not destroyed when a bishop or a priest or a famous Evangelical preacher brought shame and embarrassment on their faith community by their sinful behavior. Their leader, their ideal let them down and like the men from Emmaus these good people walk away from it all. They’ve lost trust.

In the gospel these two despondent men are blessed by this stranger catching up with them and walking with them. He was a man who knew his scriptures and shared his knowledge with them. He tried to help them see that through the ages the prophets taught that the Christ, the Messiah was bound to suffer a fate like Jesus and so enter into his glory.

This stranger accepted their hospitality and shared a meal with them. He took the bread from the table blessed it, broke it and offered it to his hosts and with a graced insight they recognized the risen Jesus in that ordinary ritual of breaking and sharing bread.

Can we imagine that this resurrection story is a metaphor of how God deals with a man or a woman struggling with their faith, with their relationship with the church? Christ comes to us in and through other people and surprises us with acts of kindness and words of understanding and support. We experience the ‘breaking of the bread’ in and through the words and actions of loving and supporting people. We are all on a journey, a journey of faith, a journey that can lead us to deepening of our relationship with Jesus our Christ, a journey that can lead to a deepening of our relationship with our church.

On our journey we meet others and they meet us.

As we celebrate our own ‘breaking of the bread’ at this Mass may we always be there for family members and friends who are struggling with their faith in Christ and his church and at the same time be open to the example and support other people offer us as we try to grow ever more deeply in the life that is ours through the Passion Death and Resurrection of Jesus our Christ.

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Homily – April 16, 2017

Sunday, April 16th, 2017

In his first letter to the Christian people of Corinth Paul writes to them of a matter of first importance; Christ died for our sins and was buried and that he was raised from the dead on the third day. We could say all the rest is commentary, Christ’s teachings and miracles, but this is the heart of the matter.

This feast of Easter is the foundational celebration of our Christian faith. St. Paul tells us that if Christ was not raised from the dead then we of all people are the most to be pitied. The shame and suffering of Good Friday were all for nothing. We are still estranged from God – there was no reconciliation. But we believe that the Father has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead and we too have been raised in him to live a new life for God. Christ’s resurrection is a pledge and promise of our resurrection. Death has no power over us anymore.

And who was the person, the apostle, the proclaimer of the resurrection of Jesus? Mary Madeline, a woman. His choice was revolutionary. Think about the position of women at the time of Jesus. It is pretty close to the way women are seen in many of the countries of the Middle East even today. A woman could never leave her home unless a male member of the family was with. She could never be seen taking with a man in public. Girls were never educated as boys were. Their marriages were arranged by their fathers. They were never allowed to be a witness is a court case. They could not inherit property. There was an old Jewish prayer that went; I thank God I was not born an ignorant man, a Gentile nor a woman. Women were none persons.

Jesus went out of his way to break many of these social taboos. Many of his friends were woman who travelled with him. He encouraged Mary to stay in the room with men and listen to his teachings – he praised her for choosing the better part. He spoke publically with the woman at the well. He cured the woman with the flow of blood; he raised a young girl from the dead. Dying on the cross he was comforted by the presence of his mother and other women. His male friends were nowhere to be seen.

Jesus wanted to share the glorious reality of his resurrection from the dead first of all with a woman, Mary Magdalene. Mary came early in the morning to finish the hurried anointing of Jesus body that took place on Friday only to find the tomb empty. A man she thought was a gardener called her by name and she knew he was Jesus. She lost him once; she would not lose him again. She clung to his feet but he had something important for her to do. ‘Go and tell, go and tell my disciples, go and tell the world I am risen, I am alive.’ Mary Magdalene brought this good news to all of us – He is risen.

In our time – skepticism has thickened with the advance of science and reason, there is little time for things spiritual or supernatural. Reports of miracles and divine intervention still draw faith and curiosity, but they run against the grain. Skeptics regard them, of course, as wishful thinking and attention getting events.

People who reject the astounding claim that Jesus is risen from the dead may believe the news has been faked, there must be alternative facts. But for the cluster of women who first reported it, including Mary Magdalene, there isn’t the slightest hint that they conjured or concocted it in order to manipulate the apostles for a predetermined end. No, they just blurted it out as stupendous, unanticipated truth.

Celebrating this great act of God St. Paul tells us we are to seek the things that are above, seek and live a way of life, away of relating to other people that mirrors the teaching and example Jesus gave us through his live and his dying. We are to love others as we are loved, accept others as we have been accepted, and forgive others as we have been forgiven. This is an authentic celebration of this feast.

And may we all be blessed with a joyful Easter and testify by the way we live our lives Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

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Homily – April 9, 2017

Sunday, April 9th, 2017

Today’s feast of Palm Sunday could be called the feast of great expectations. Jesus came to the holy city to celebrate the great feast Passover. As Matthew tells us in his gospel the crowds went wild. With great enthusiasm they welcome Jesus to the city. They spread palm branches on the road to cut down the dust, other people went before and after Jesus waving their branches crying out Hosanna to the son of David. Others proudly announced ‘this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.

Many in that crowd really hoped that Jesus was the one who was to redeem Israel. They hoped that Jesus would be their liberator who would in whatever way break the hold the Roman Empire had on God’s people and make them a nation once again. This enthusiastic crowd had great expectations. But the crowd’s enthusiasm for Jesus was countered by the authority’s concern for national security and their conviction that it was better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish.

The people’s great expectations of Jesus were far different from God’s expectation of his son. Out second reading tells us Jesus emptied himself or his divinity and took to himself our humanity and emptied himself even more, he became a slave, a slave who would be obedient even to dying on a shameful cross. By being faithful to his father’s will our reconciliation, our peace pact with God was sealed. God’s great expectation of his son was the total obedience of Jesus, an expectation that was rewarded with Christ’s resurrection.

On the feast of Palm Sunday St. Paul tells us to have the same mindset Jesus had when he surrendered his life to his Father. The question we can ask ourselves at this Mass is; do we really mean what we say to God our Father when we say, ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done’. Are willing to echo the words of Jesus as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane; ’not my will but you will be done.

Let this be our prayer as we begin the Holy Week, thy kingdom some. May we pray it as best we can, not knowing what these words may ask of us yet trusting that Jesus our Christ will be with us gracing us to mean what we say and promising us to be at our side in every situation that comes our way.

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Homily – April 2, 2017

Sunday, April 2nd, 2017

Let’s look at the very humanness of this Lazarus event. Jesus was a close friend of Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. He often visited them with his disciples. We remember the time when Jesus and his friends crashed at Lazarus’ home and caused a bit of a family squabble, Martha complaining about having to do all the work of preparing a meal while her lazy sister Mary sat and listened to what Jesus had to say.

Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was very ill. They expected him to come right away. They knew Jesus had cured sick men and women before; surely he would be there for his friend Lazarus. But things didn’t work out that way. Jesus and his companions showed up four days after Lazarus’ burial. His body had already begun to smell.

When Martha, who always spoke her mind, went out to meet Jesus she rightly complained to him, ‘if you had been here my brother would not have died.’ In other words, ‘after all the hospitality we’ve shown you and your friends, where were you when we need you? Martha and Mary must have had conversations about how disappointed they were with Jesus’ absence in their time of grief because Mary made the same complaint when she met Jesus,’ if you had been here our brother would not have died.’

Martha and Mary shared the same conviction, ‘I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ In other words, all is not lost.

And we are told that Jesus wept, he shared in their grief and in the sadness of the whole scene. As Jesus told his disciples when word reached about Lazarus’ health, ‘this illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of Man may be glorified through it,’ In other words, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

Jesus goes to the tomb and in loud voice he calls Lazarus to come out. To everyone’s astonishment Lazarus comes out wrapped in his burial shroud. We can only imagine the shock and the astonishment of all who were there that day and how swiftly the news spread about what Jesus did.

One thing in this wonderful event that sticks with me is the justifiable complaint of Martha and Mary, ‘if you had been here our brother would not have died.’ That complaint might make us wonder whether or not we have been there for family members and friends when they most needed us. There can be times in a person’s life when he or she can be so overwhelmed that they feel their very life has gone out of them. Emotionally they are as good as dead. They’ve just been told they have cancer or some debilitating disease that will change their life completely. They may be tortured by anxiety or swamped by depression. They may have been let go from their job. They may be faced with the shock of separation or divorce. They may have discovered a son or daughter in trapped in an addiction. The list could go on and on, but their lives will never be the same.

Jesus was there for Martha and Mary and his presence, his words made a difference. Are we there for those who need us? We can’t make the pain go away but our concern, our presence our words can make a difference. We can ask the question; ’is there anything I can do’. We can let them know we are praying for them. Do we appreciate the fact that a visit, a phone call, an email might make a difference and let them know they are not alone? These gestures may not be appreciated but at least we tried.

There is a song titled ‘where were you when I needed you’? Jesus was there for Martha and Mary. Can he inspire us to be there for those who might appreciate our presence, our prayers or our words of encouragement? As Jesus called Lazarus to life, our little gestures might call our friends to new life, new hope. It’s something to think about.

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