Category: Homilies

Homilies

Palm Sunday 2010

First reading: Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm: Ps 22:8-9,17-20,23-24—¨
Epistle: Philippians 2:6-11
Gospel: Luke 22-23—¨

The Lord GOD has given me—¨
a well-trained tongue,
—¨that I might know how to speak to the weary
—¨a word that will rouse them.

Lord for us Your wounds were suffered
Oh Christ Jesus have mercy on us—¨

Christ speaks to us profoundly

At the beginning of our first reading, taken from Isaiah, the Lord tells us that His Word, Jesus Christ, is the Word that will be spoken to us. He tells us that our Savior will speak profound and moving words that cut through the chatter and clutter that infect our lives. He tells us that His beloved Son will rouse us when we are weary. Jesus will change us.

As we know, Isaiah is writing well before Jesus’ coming. He likely ended his ministry of prophesy about 680 years before Jesus’ coming. Yet through Isaiah the coming Savior is clearly prefigured.

God is telling us that the life of Jesus, the life we are to model and imitate, this life of a servant who will be beaten and looked upon as lowly and outcast, is more than just a wasted life. Jesus’ life is the life offered for us. Jesus’ life as the servant, offered up for us, brings real change. That change is for you and me. There is real change, day-to-day renewal and rebirth here in Johnson City, and in Binghamton, Albany, Utica, Scranton, Oneonta, and in cities, towns, and villages around the world. That change in Jesus starts now and ends in glory.

His words and His path are one

Indeed, Jesus cuts through the noise of the world and unifies everything in Himself. Jesus’ life, words, and ministry are not just a series of historical one-off events, but a unity of message and purpose. Jesus’ life is an eternal constant, and the love and salvation He brings has been and will always be there for us.

When we join ourselves to Him in our Holy Polish National Church we become part of that constant, the life and words of Jesus washing away the old, destroying the noise, picking us up, rousing us, and changing us.

This week’s path will weary us

The path we follow this week will weary us. Whether that weary comes from the commitment, time, and sacrifice necessary to be with Jesus through these holiest of days, from Maundy Thursday to Resurrection morning, or the shopping, cooking, and cleaning that need to be done, or the work schedule that cannot wait, or the children, or projects, the weariness will be there. Our eyes will be heavy like the eyes of the disciples’ were in the garden. We will feel like we want to run away, like the disciples did. Our crosses will sit heavy upon our shoulders, as the cross bore down on Jesus.

This week’s path will rouse us

But, Jesus will rouse us. Walking this path will empty us of the old and fill us with new life. St. Paul gives us the greatest hymn of all time in today’s Epistle. This ancient Church hymn tells us what His disciples found from the beginning, that Jesus came emptied of His Godship to serve us, that He offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, and these words that rouse us: He reigns in Heaven with the Father and the Spirit.

The weariness gives way to the great and high position of Jesus in which we have a share. Christ lives eternally in glory, and so shall we. This is our assurance, the promised change Jesus brings to us. We know what awaits us. We will be changed into the glory that awaits us in heaven with Jesus forever. This is our great and rousing joy!

This week’s path buries us

This week we are buried with Christ. It is important to recall that during Holy Week we recall and renew our Baptism. As St. Paul tells us (Romans 6:4):

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

In baptism our old nature was buried. We are buried in those waters. That burial of the old self prepares us for the change Jesus has for us. Jesus’ change makes us new men and women.

This week’s path resurrects us.

The new man is our resurrected selves. As we emerged from the waters of Baptism so we emerge changed, into a new and resurrected life with Jesus.

Our rebirth, regeneration in Baptism, is the doorway into Jesus’ resurrected life. The grave is nothing to us because it is but a way station, a brief respite for our bodies before they enter into God’s glory. As we process on Easter Sunday morning we process changed people. The burial is forgotten, God’s glory is before us.

This week’s path surpasses all the glories we can imagine.

This week’s path is a series of steps. If we have walked them once or one hundred times, let us never forget that walking them is a small price to pay for the direction in which they lead. They lead to Jesus, to that moment when we stand as a changed, reborn, regenerated, renewed people before the throne of God. That eternal moment will surpass all the glories we can imagine, and indeed have ever been imagined. Earthly glories are but a thimble sized amount of the glory we will behold as a people changed by Jesus.

This week, my friends, walk the path and allow our Lord and Savior to push out the old, to crush the noise, and to make us a changed people once again. He is ready to do it. Only let Him. Amen.

Homilies, PNCC

Solemnity of the Institution of the Polish National Catholic Church

First reading: Wisdom 5:1-5
Gradual: Psalm 30:2-4
Epistle: 1 Timothy 4:1-5
Gospel: John 15:1-7

Everything God created is good

Lord for us your wounds were suffered. O Christ Jesus, have mercy on us.

Life skills:

When I was about 14 or 15 I decided that I could do many things for myself, that I really didn’t need mom to hand hold me or do a lot of other stuff. Now, I have to admit that my effort was not totally in vain. I was smart enough to go to my mom and other adults and ask them to show me the way.

Getting shown the way (hopefully not the door) was a really smart thing to do. I learned how to cook, clean, wash my clothes, iron —“ all those life skills that make a young man a decent marrying prospect, and prevents him from being a total slob.

Life skills are key to survival, and to living a good, peaceful, and comfortable life. While Google isn’t the definitive word on all things, I think we can infer the importance of life skills by the more than 61 million links to websites about them.

A list:

UNIFEF has put emphasis on life skills as a key component of education. They’ve provided a list of some of the major life skills that should be taught. Among those skills are interpersonal communication, negotiation and conflict management, empathy, cooperation and teamwork, advocacy, decision-making, critical thinking, goal setting, and managing feelings and stress; a lot more than just ironing, cooking, and cleaning.

God’s list:

God has given us a list of life skills, and as people of faith these are the life skills that rise to the top of our list. Of course, the most important of life skills are those taught by our Lord.

Jesus’ coming did more than provide a list. What He gave us was His life lived according to the life skills God wants us to know and adopt. Before Jesus came God repeatedly communicated a set of life skills that are key to our relationships.

Our first reading today was taken from Wisdom. The Wisdom books are all about life skills. The Hebrew word for Wisdom actually means life skills. The Jewish people always saw wisdom as something intensely practical, something to help you live your life. While that is true, the Wisdom books are more than a set of pragmatic, common sense skills that get us through the day, they are focused on God.

Wisdom then is about God’s relationship with us and our relationship with him and each other. Wisdom is having life skills defined by an understanding and proper respect for God and His works.

Getting it:

In today’s prophecy from Wisdom, the Just One, Jesus Christ, confronts all those who didn’t get it, and they stand back amazed and stricken in spirit. It is as if all the irony in life hit them all at once. This example is not just about irony however, nor about those who oppressed Jesus getting their due; it is more about the fact that they didn’t have an understanding of God’s way or a proper respect for God and His works.

Paul, in writing to Timothy, was giving advice on how to run the local Church. Paul was giving practical instruction as to how Timothy should live, how he should administer, and the ways in which he should prepare himself for the tough things. In our Epistle we hear that some will turn away. The reasons they turn away are not really important, but we know that those who turn away can have a devastating effect on a community. The key is that Timothy is to recognize and stand by wisdom, the life skills that make Christians who they are. In other words, Paul is saying that Christians have life skills based in Jesus, and that they are to receive what God gives —with thanksgiving.— Paul’s letter to Timothy teaches one thing: that a Christian’s necessary life skills are love and prayer. With those skills we are able to do all things.

The True Vine:

Many have argued over the passage about the True Vine in today’s Gospel. Some have used Jesus’ words as a metaphor for the Church; Jesus is the vine and there are many branches —“ or kinds of Churches. Others have used it as an argument against Church —“ I don’t need religion, that religion is just a process or an outright falsehood —“ what I really need is to be part of Jesus.

Wrong on all counts. The problem with over analysis and proof-texting the scriptures —“ picking out a verse to prove ones point —“ is that we miss the plain meaning. Jesus is discussing this very key and elemental life skill. We are to follow Him so that we might live. This key life skill is life itself. Not following Jesus is to be —like a withered, rejected branch,— that is, to have no life.

The Church:

Today we celebrate a very important and most solemn day. Today we recall the institution of our Holy Polish National Catholic Church.
The Church is many things, and like UNICEF I could make a list of all the things the Church is. I could carefully explain branch theory and prove that our Church fits the model and mandate of Jesus Christ, as well as the ways and methods set forth in the earliest writing of the Apostles and Church Fathers. I don’t think you would want to hear that.

What we need to focus on today is the why of Church in our lives and the question of why this Church. If you were to ask me: —Deacon, why are you in the PNCC?— I could offer hundreds, if not thousands of reasons, but the key is this.

Life, not death:

Our Holy Church is not about death, but about life. In 1897 it pulled itself out from under the shackles of a Church that focused on death, punishment, sin, and retribution, a Church of power and wealth blind to the cries of its children. A Church who put rule books and process before the life skills necessary — for life.

Our Holy Church spoke to the poor, the workers, the Union organizers, the immigrants with the gleam of hope in their eyes for themselves and for their children.

Our Holy Church looked at Jesus as the Divine Master who came to teach life and to provide the life skills that do more than what is practical. His life skills lead us to life that lasts forever.

That’s what I want, for myself, my family, my children, and for all of us. This Holy Polish National Catholic Church placed the gleam back in my eyes. This Church is the Church that gives us the hope and the life that Jesus was all about.

Our Church teaches that by accepting Jesus as our Divine Master, and following His way, we bind ourselves to the Vine that gives life. In our Holy Church we live a life defined by those necessary skills — love and prayer. In our Church we recognize true wisdom; that we have a relationship with God and with each other. In our Church we gain the life skills, the wisdom necessary for a true and proper understanding as well as respect for God.

We are blessed to have our Holy Church. We are not them, we are not something else, we are PNCC and we are life. Take great comfort in being in this Church and know it, learn about it, cherish it. Know that here we have the life that Jesus wanted for His branches. Amen.

Homilies

Third Sunday of Lent (C)

First reading: Exodus 3:1-8,13-15
Psalm: Ps 103:1-4,6-8,11
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10:1-6,10-12
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

These things happened as examples for us

Któryś za nas cierpiał rany
Jezu Chrtyste, zmiłuj się nad nami

Lord for us your wounds were suffered
O, Christ Jesus, have mercy on us

The fig tree’s perspective

A question: Would we want to be that fig tree? Let’s imagine how the fig tree must have felt. The owner had been showing up, three years in a row, and the tree had nothing to show him. The fig tree knew, this time the owner wasn’t going to accept the ‘no fruit’ option. The fig tree can hear him yelling: Cut it down! What a waste! Burn it up!

The gardener implores the owner:

‘Sir, leave it for this year also, —¨and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; —¨it may bear fruit in the future.’

The fig tree was certainly glad that the gardener was there and that he prevailed. Would we want to be the fig tree? Perhaps the question should be, What must we do, since we are the fig tree?

Lessons from history

Much of this week’s scripture is a walk through history. We hear of Moses’ encounter on Mount Horeb. We hear Jesus in discussions about events of that day, the Galileans killed by Pilate, or the eighteen people killed when the tower at Si’loam fell on them. Paul discusses the Exodus from Egypt and the fact that the Israelites who displeased God were —struck down in the desert.—

These histories are not meant to depress us, or cause us to think that God is horrible, or to think that these particular people were terrible sinners of some sort. What it is meant to teach, is that we must not assume an air of overconfidence, self-centered reliance, or some attitude that would cause us to think that we live in a state of sinless perfection. We must never fail to recall that without God we will bear no fruit. Overconfidence, self-centered reliance, and a failure to acknowledge and repent of our sins places in a state apart from God, as if we, on our own, could bear fruit.

As Christians, our attitude must be that of the fig tree. The tree had to rely on the good will of the gardener. Likewise, we must place our reliance on Jesus as the one who cultivates us and gives us that next chance. We must see Jesus as the one who frees us from our sin, who makes us new, who fills us with life, and who — if He is in our lives — causes us to bear good fruit (John 15:1-2).

Who gets punished?

Things get complicated in life. At times we are left wondering what happened. Someone we trusted, we built a relationship with, we made plans with, is gone. Perhaps some other disappointment, a let down, job loss, economic problems, relationship stresses, in all of it we look internally and perhaps we wonder, Am I being punished?

Our society has become very well versed in punishment. The slightest let down, the littlest transgression, and retribution is demand. Punishment is ever before our eyes and by some sort of transference we turn our God into a god of punishment. Some religious talking heads blame tragedy on God’s retribution. You’ve heard it, and the more we hear it the less shocked we are. We should be shocked for this isn’t God.

People who make this mistake, who focus on punishment, on the sins of others, or on their own sins — all to the exclusion of Jesus as our salvation — forget about the gardener, the one who tills the soil around us, who feeds us with His word, and who gives us the next chance.

God transcends

The amazing thing about God is that He transcends punishment, sinfulness, and disappointment. Our core faith, our inner being knows very well that we do not have a God of punishment. We, in the Holy Polish National Catholic Church, trust in the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. He is the God that came to us, that took on our humanity, that suffered and was disappointed, even by His disciples.

His disciples thought they knew better, they battled each other, they were quick to act, slow to think. They even lied, betrayed, and ran away, all to protect themselves. God wasn’t punishment to them, for that or any other reason.

Our God transcended all that, and in His precious blood He washed all that was sick in them, and he washes all that is sick in us away. Our God is that very gardener who implored the owner for more time, for more work even. The gardener had to do more and more for that fig tree. Jesus stands beside us, for we are like that fig tree, and He gives us the grace that allows us to bear fruit.

God the Father is the owner and He can only see us through the lens of His Son Jesus, the gardener, who is working so that we might bear fruit.

God is in the present tense.

Interestingly, our God has a name. Do you recall what He told Moses? What was God’s name? I Am.

God is teaching us, even in giving us His Holy Name. He is telling us, I am. God is in the present tense. God is always present. The whole —footprints on the beach— may be a bit cliche, but that is the truth of God. He is present. He is with us even when we disappoint in sin, even when we are disappointed, fearful, questioning. In our times of strength and times of weakness, God is present tense.

Present, and always another chance

God is exactly present to us in this tabernacle, on this Holy Altar. He is present in this community, in our Holy Church. His grace is living, energizing, and present with us. He is at work here and in our entire Church. Not only is He present, God the Holy Spirit is at work, fertilizing all our minds, strengthening our bodies, refreshing our wills to struggle on.

Take comfort

Today we are to take comfort. Forget punishment and disappointment — that is not our destiny nor our present circumstance. Look to God. Look to the image of God in each other and in your neighbors. The gardener is standing with us and He is ready. He has set to work so that in Him we might bear fruit. In Him we have all we need.

— In Him we have all we need. —

We have that next chance, and the next after that. He will not abandon us — as long as we stay faithful to Him — not to ourselves, not to agendas — but to Him who transcends, is ever present, and is at work to make us whole. Amen.

Homilies

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – C

First reading: Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10
Psalm: Ps 19:8-10, 15
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Gospel: Luke 1:1-4; Luke 4:14-21

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

The walls were still down

Our first reading was from Nehemiah. Nehemiah is an interesting book. It was written just after the Babylonian captivity; the Jews had returned to Israel. While they had returned they were acting a bit lost and were disorganized, wandering about, wondering what they should do. Jerusalem was there, but it was no capital. It was in shambles. The walls of the city were destroyed.

Nehemiah was working for the Babylonian king and asked for permission to go to Jerusalem. He wanted to rebuild it, to get things organized, to get people working together. While the king gave him permission, other political leaders fought against him, tried to distract him from his task, and even tried to kill him. All through, Nehemiah stayed true to his task, and never lost focus. Nehemiah not only stayed on task, but also organized the people diving them into groups and skills so that working together they would accomplish their task. While the task was immediate, Nehemiah knew that the reason for the task was more than rebuilding, it was recognition.

Acting in unison

Nehemiah is an example of what prayer, planning, hard work, and unity can accomplish. Acting together the walls were rebuilt. The walls were rebuilt in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15).

Toward what?

Now let’s suppose that you and your family, your tribe, gather together and decide to build a house. You plan, organize, pray, and set to work. You make record speed while your neighbors stand by and ridicule or attack you. Now you have a house, and you look at it and say, ‘what is this for?’ You’ve done it but have no explanation for the purpose of the house. What do you do with it? You look but lack the gift of recognition, the seeing that must accompany the doing.

In Nehemiah’s case he knew the purpose, and so he gathered the people, and with Ezra stood before them to explain it all. The Law was read. From the morn till noon the people stood and were instructed. The Law, the Old Testament expression of God’s love and care for His people was set before them.

Ezra and Nehemiah knew, God’s law was the foundation the real rebuilding, the rebirth of the spirit and the rebirth of the peoples unity with God and each other. So they taught the people so that the people would recognize the purpose of their work.

Recognition

The people were so moved by God’s message their eyes fill with tears. They were focusing on their mistakes, how they have fallen short. They still didn’t recognize. But Ezra and Nehemiah knew better. They urged the people to celebrate. The people heard God’s word which was the wellspring for their unity. Nehemiah wanted the people to see, to recognize One God, and themselves as one people of God.

—Do not be sad, and do not weep—”
Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks,
and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared;
for today is holy to our LORD.
Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!—

Jesus came to the Synagogue for the same reason. He came to instruct the people, to read for them and be for them what was greater than the Law. It was God who stood before them to show them, to proclaim for them, that He was the fulfillment, the new point of unity that surpasses the written Law. Not just God in words and commands, but God living among them, with them in every way. Jesus so badly wanted them to get it, to recognize them, to let the scales fall from their eyes so they could see clearly.

All of this, the big lead up to this moment in Nehemiah and in Luke, is the groundwork for recognition. The people in the rebuilt Jerusalem were told to recognize the God who loved them and cared for them, who changed them from a captive people to a free people, from many tribes and houses to one people. The people of Nazareth were invited to recognize God’s arrival. They weren’t at the manager a few short weeks ago, nor by the Jordan or at the wedding. Their revelation stood before them and declared its presence. Would they recognize Him?

Bound in Baptism

Likewise we are invited to recognize God and our place in the people of God — the unity that comes from our common baptism. Paul is telling the people of Corinth to recognize their unity as a new people, a unified body and to see God in the many ways He expresses Himself through the one Spirit.

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,
whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons,
and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

The people in Corinth were very much in touch with their uniqueness. They felt themselves so unique that they had divided and subdivided by the gifts each person had. They weren’t working together to build the symbolic walls which would unify their city of God, their community, because the bricklayers thought they were better than the haulers, and the haulers felt they were better than the miners, and the miners better than those who made the cement. Paul knew that the unity that would enclose them and make them one, their common baptism, wasn’t being recognized and in failing to recognize their common life in Christ they failed to recognize God.

Sameness

Paul points out that the desired unity is not sameness. While each member of the Church, indeed, each community in the Church is unique and special we are not to focus on being the same, but rather the community that comes from the myriad gifts and expressions we have.

For instance, our Holy Polish National Catholic Church is not Roman Catholic, it is not this, or that, or someone else’s definition of what the Holy Church is, but the full Catholic expression of the unique gifts of our community, given to us so that the world might recognize God through our work.

Paul cautioned against demanding sameness. Not one member in Corinth was better than the next based on a specific gift. In fact, their classification system was turned on its head by Paul’s message.

Gifts

Paul asked the faithful in Corinth to understand that each of them is bonded by baptism into the one body of Christ. Each of them had a contribution to make to the Church. So Paul asked that there be no rivalry between them. Instead Paul asked that they work together for the good of all. He asked that they express their gifts as part of something that is larger than the gift itself.

God has given His gifts to our Holy Church, and to each of us, not as a preference, but rather as a means to achieving what Nehemiah and Jesus call us to do —“ recognize God, living among us, as part of us, in a community that is more than momentary, but that will last forever.

Turn to the person next to you or behind you. Know their face. You will see them in the heavenly kingdom, where our perfected community and its gifts will join with every other community in one common recognition of Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Savior, and in one joyous Amen.

and all the people, their hands raised high, answered,
—Amen, amen!—

Homilies

Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds

First Reading: Jeremiah 31:10-14
Psalm: Ps 97:1,6,11-12
Epistle: Titus 3:4-7
Gospel: Luke 2:15-20

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

Let us go and see

Ok, I agree, let’s get up and go to see. Perhaps it was natural curiosity; perhaps they were just dazzled into compliance with the angels’ request. I think it was curiosity.

I would like to take a moment to think about that moment of curiosity. When did you experience a moment of curiosity so strong that it led you to a change?

We don’t even have to think about anything particularly remarkable. Ever get curious about how your neighbors decorate their homes, how to grow a plant like the one you saw in a nearby garden, or how to create a yummy recipe you’ve tasted?

That sort of curiosity leads to changes. Suddenly you’re asking your spouse to help you rearrange the furniture and re-hang the pictures, or you’re at Hewitt’s selecting plants and fertilizer, or you attend a Pampered Chef party to get just the right kind of cooking implements. Our curiosity creates change.

Today we are called to encounter something new and to be changed by it.

The Hells Angels showed up

Outside of Chicago a child was born. The angles appeared to a group of bikers in the nearby locale and told them the news. The bikers put on their leathers and hopped on their bikes saying, ‘Let’s go over and check this out.’

The Hell’s Angels showed up, saw, and understood. Kind of like what just happened with the shepherds.

But, why shepherds, why Hell’s Angels? Was it just the nearest folks who happened to be there? Were they the ones who were awake while everyone else slept? Is it symbolic of Jesus as the Good Shepherd? Guess what? It doesn’t matter because what happened next is what was most important.

The disconnect

Many of the reflections I’ve read focus on the stuff Jesus did, the things He accomplished as if it were all done in a vacuum.

Today we see that Jesus didn’t do it in a vacuum or in some sort of rarified atmosphere. Jesus came poor and in need.

Jesus came to bring about change in all He encountered. His encounter with them and with us, with the shepherds in His poverty, isn’t about Jesus magically changing them or us. If Jesus had just wanted to do that He could have done it all from heaven, no fuss, no muss. Rather, our encounter with Jesus, born of our natural curiosity, is brought to fulfillment in the fruit, the growth that comes about within us. Out of that curiosity we take the steps necessary to make ourselves, our world, different.

What happened?

So what happened that night? How did the curiosity of those humble shepherds result in their moving their furniture around? How did they change? How did they become something other than what they were while lying back in the fields a few moments ago? They weren’t there just so Jesus could do unto them. Jesus needed them.

Remember Father’s homily from Christmas. He spoke about the conversation and wonder that was going on inside and outside the door of the manger. Today we are to think beyond the words and the wonder to what happened next.

I believe the shepherds reached into their bags and presented Mary and Joseph with gifts from their meager stores: bread, cheese, oil, and wine. Perhaps they offered sheepskin blankets. Mary and Joseph didn’t show up to a Bethlehem teaming with Price Choppers and Hannafords. They didn’t come to an area with a major metropolitan hospital and a birthing center. They likely didn’t even have a midwife. They were alone and on their own in a strange and distant place, one inhospitable and kind of mean. The innkeepers were mean and they ended up in a barn —“- abandoned and alone, cold and afraid.

The shepherds did something. They came as the first visitors, the reassurance that Mary and Joseph and their newborn Son were not alone. Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus had friends and benefactors. The shepherds came and were moved to change, to share, to participate, and to offer gifts and compassion —“ to be different than what they were moments ago.

The kindness and love

Saint Paul tells Titus: when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us

Jesus’ coming was and still is an encounter with something completely new, and that something new saves us. This Christmas season renews our newness. Our curiosity, coming to this holy place, this Parish church, creates the encounter that begins our change. In the encounter we are called to offer more than words. We are required to do more than just gaze on in wonder. We are to convert our wonder and our words into action —“ to act like God would act, with goodness and loving kindness.

We weren’t just the folks who happened to be nearby. We weren’t the ones who were awake while everyone else slept. We are the accountants, laborers, technicians, paralegals, police officers, teachers, priests, deacons, and students who are called to be here and to be changed people because Jesus needs us.

Not in what we do, but how we are changed

We can gaze in our neighbors’ windows and admire their decorating acumen. We can taste every dish ever created and marvel at the subtle complexity in each. We can walk through every garden and be amazed. Our curiosity cannot stand-alone. If we look on, and do nothing with what our curiosity has revealed, it will kill us.

On the other hand we can do to excess. We can throw bread, blankets, and money at issues. We can act, act, act, and if it is just acting —“ well…

Curiosity or doing alone is not enough. The curiosity we feel gazing at the Christ child and the offering and work we put forth, must also convert us.

It is said that the shepherds —saw and understood.— This seeing and understanding started in their curiosity. It came together in their encounter with Jesus. They went away doing more than engaging in intellectual efforts at understanding. They had been changed and that change made everything new and different. This change was their remodeled house, their green garden, and the food that would cause them to live forever. Because of this they glorified and praised God for all they had heard and seen.

We are heirs

We are the heirs of the shepherds. We are to see and truly understand. God gives us the grace to be curious and to do good. More than that, he gives us the grace to bring our curiosity and our doing together creating real change. That change is the newness that is more than momentary. It isn’t seasonal change, one time change, change for the sake of change. It is the real and everlasting change that makes us one with each other and with our Lord and Savior. We are the shepherds, the bikers, accountants, laborers, technicians, paralegals, police officers, teachers, priests, deacons, and student who are changed by Jesus. Our furniture has been moved, our garden is green and our life is new. Our food is sweet and forever —“ it is the Lord revealed to us. Amen.

Homilies

Solemnity of Christ the King

First reading: Daniel 7:13-14
Psalm: Ps 93:1-2,5
Epistle: Revelation 1:5-8
Gospel: John 18:33-37

So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?”

I got you:

I can relate to this line. Pilate had it all figured out. As judge, jury, and prosecutor he had that Perry Mason moment, the, —I got you— moment. Ah ha… then you are a king.

I’ve spent most of my working life in tax audit and enforcement. I can understand Pilate’s motivations here. I love these moments, when the person you’re auditing spills the beans and you discover the fraud. When the person you’re perusing for payment slips and let’s you know where the money’s hidden.

Pilate had Jesus. He found out that Jesus was a king and as such was the foe of Caesar. Of course, Jesus had to die now.

Pilate didn’t get it:

Pilate’s ah ha moment, the revelation that filled his head, was a complete mistake. He just didn’t get it at all.

Being a Roman, Pilate had no concept of the otherness of God. His idols were made of bronze, silver, gold, and stone. They had no reality other than in fables. His gods frolicked on Mount Olympus or some other locale. They had human qualities and human likeness. His fables told of gods who affected natural things, made the sun and moon rise, had fun in the sack, took care of the critters. None of their attributes were truly supernatural. The stories weren’t of spiritual beings, because if they were, their authors couldn’t relate them to Pilate’s reality.

Pilate’s reality was about power and he understood politics and the exercise of power, not the difference in Jesus, the otherness of God.

We try to explain:

Pilate was wrong and he didn’t get it. Seeing that, should we question the way we explain God?

King, ruler, majesty, all powerful, great, to be worshipped, Father, Lord. We use words, but those words fail to move us beyond the natural concepts they convey. We try to explain, but how do we connect our reality to God’s reality?

Look at our beautiful altar. The altar is God’s throne covered in linen cloths, flowers, candles. We perform postures and gestures before the throne, kneeling, bowing at God’s Holy Name. Yet, throne, light, movement — the natural things, things we can know, things we can do, things we relate to.

Picture a king. What do you see? Royal robes, a throne, people bowing, knights… It is human nature. We categorize things and paint pictures for ourselves.

Christian books, theologians, poets, the writers of prayers… They and we describe everything and attempt to describe God, but, like Pilate, we fall short in relating our reality to God’s reality.

We try so hard in categorizing and understanding God, in trying to relate to the God who is other; we sometimes go so far as to take everything and turn it into some sort of miracle. That baby, the sunset, flight, a field of flowers… Everything becomes miraculous. Certainly beautiful, certainly inspiring, but not miraculous, they are just natural. We are grasping to explain, to fit God to what we know, to fit His action in our lives to what we see, but He is so outside, beyond, and over anything we can possibly say, feel, write, or experience that we, like Pilate, fall far short.

How can we get this:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, ” says the Lord God,
“the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty.”

How can we possibly get the otherness of God? A blogger recently wrote on the whole idea of God’s otherness and our inability to grasp that concept.

Think of everything you would consider portraying the supernatural and spiritual. Is it a movie character, a character in a book? Exactly how otherworldly are they, exactly how supernatural and beyond us? If we took any character we could, in a matter of seconds, show that they are little more than mortal beings with special, albeit not supernatural powers.

Consider Superman. By all accounts flesh and blood. Born on a different planet and endowed with tremendous powers, but still man. We could take any character: vampires, magicians, and find that they are no more than men and women who ply on some special physical reality. None are supernatural spiritual beings, because if they were, their authors couldn’t relate them to our reality.

In our failure to understand God’s reality we run from the supernatural, from God, and back to ourselves. We have done this for millennia, since the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:4-5):

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

We have continually tried to co-opt the supernatural, the spiritual. We have tried and tried to make what is other and beyond into something we know. We go so far as to make ourselves into the something other, into gods. We want to be the man with superpowers. In our effort at becoming gods unto ourselves, our physicalness, our reality as god, the reality of that other — the pure spirit, the soul, God, is becoming lost. We can’t quite get how something can be real, with a will and intellect, that exists outside, above and without time or space, and yet has the ability to relate to us. We cannot understand how this God who is other should have some say in the way we run our lives. How can this essence, this spiritual being be with us, guide us, teach us, instruct us, call us to account, yet be so far different than anything we know?

If we common sense, if we are smart, we realize that the spiritual being of God cannot be grasped in what we know alone.

We know, but we don’t:

All is not lost. All is not lost because God has acted, and we can know Him.

We need not create stories of gods or attempt to turn ourselves into gods. We are blessed because we have the absolute ability to know God by our own logic. Man is wonderfully endowed with a connectedness to our Creator. God has acted and has built in an automatic mechanism by which we are called back to Him. We know of Him because as Lord, Master, and Creator He has made it so.

What’s the difference between your GPS or map and the place you’re going? Like our built in mechanism the GPS and map can help us get there, but we cannot fully know the place we are going until we experience it. Our knowing about God is different from the full-on experience of God. That full on experience takes two things: revelation and faith.

Faith and revelation are not required to know that God exists, but are required to know who He is.

He came and taught us:

God came to tell us the real story, to fill in the blanks, to show us who He is. God has intervened and has permanently connected these two different realities, the supernatural and the natural. He has given us the descriptive words, the sacraments, the gestures, even the prayers. Heaven and earth have been joined in the God-man Jesus Christ. While mankind knows there is God, God had to come to relate these realities and to show who He really is.

Miraculously, supernaturally, the pure essence of God became man. God has tied it all together, His reality and ours. Not only that, God showed us that everything that is, everything we are, makes sense when it is in line with what He created it to be. God showed us His perfection and let us know that we too can reach perfection. The otherness of God is now obvious to us by both logic, faith, and revelation.

God took the necessary step, the loving action required for us to know the reality of what is supernatural. He knows that we need that. We need to know about grand movements of heaven as a bulwark against evil. We need to know that all makes sense and is part of something that is beyond description, beyond space, time, the cross and the throne.

What we now know we must proclaim:

Because of God’s action, because of His intervention in time and history, because He brings about the miraculous we now have the full story.

The otherness of God, His lordship, perfection, and reality is in our grasp. We know, by logic and faith that God has acted. We need to tell the world, from our next door neighbor to the village at the furthest point away from us, God has intervened. We have the facts, the symbols, the gestures and postures, the liturgy, the community revealed by God.

The way we live, week to week, and our connection with each other in this community of faith is witness. We are not witness to the merely real, the physical earthly reality of things. We are not just people helping people, do-gooders, fighters against poverty, wage theft, and the evils that surround us. As connectors our witness tells the story of how the supernatural and spiritual intervenes and lives —“ really lives among us.

Christ lives in Pete and Mike helping my family. Christ lives in my helping others. Christ lives when we visit each other, share a story, a glass of wine, a meal. Christ lives in our work for and within this neighborhood, in this community and the wider Church. Christ lives in the ark we will send to a far off village. Christ lives — the supernatural, eternal, otherness of God has intervened in our lives and lives here.

Today we celebrate our Lord and Savior’s kingship over us. He is certainly the king in splendor arrayed. More than that, He is the king who intervened to connect heaven and earth, to make eternity real for us and for all who follow Him. Amen.

Homilies, PNCC

Solemnity of the Christian Family

First reading: Genesis 1:26-28,31
Psalm: Ps 128:1-5
Epistle: Ephesians 6:1-9
Gospel: Luke 2:42-52

Not finding Him, they returned to Jerusalem in search of Him.

Break downs:

It’s been a interesting couple of weeks in the Konicki household. Someone damaged my car in the parking lot at work. Our refrigerator and freezer went. The roof on the house is going. Everyone is antsy over the economy and jobs. Between the children’s school and sports schedules there isn’t an extra moment. The cleaning, the laundry, the odds and ends, the bills… and I don’t mean the football kind. The pressure is building and in the midst of all that we reach the point of breakdown.

We’ve all been there at one time or another. My wife and I were watching the new ABC show The Middle. In the last episode the mom was showing off her skills as the family’s emotional support amidst just that kind of stress – until kaboom and she just couldn’t do it anymore. Breakdown.

The pressure and the stress of life rarely lead to a romantic night together, quiet, or peace. Stress doesn’t seem to enhance family closeness. Conversations become arguments. People push apart and we feel we are at the point of breaking.

Get lost:

When we get to the point of breaking we rarely seek the peaceful path. Of course it all doesn’t happen at once. The stresses build and lead to anger, anger to resentment, resentment to bitterness. Fights become an end unto themselves — after all it’s about the points.

Over time, the breakdown leads to the most famous statement in American English — get lost. We want to be apart, alone, to be conversant with ourselves in the midst of misery. Get lost, get out of my life. There’s got to be someone, some place better than this. The decision to be separate is a decision for the anti-family. Family is seen as excess baggage.

The separation:

Hence the separation. The family breaks down into little pockets, winners, losers, the strong, the weak. I’m using family as an example, but it happens in friendships, among colleagues, in the Parish. We can’t seem to take it. We can’t deal. Separation and the new frontier seems to be our only way out. We enter a world of self. The quest for self-fulfillment overrides our need for family, for relationship. After-all, if I love myself the most who can compete?

Alone:

I hear the chorus of angels singing — finally alone. We’ve escaped the confines and the stresses of that woman, that man, those kids, my jerky co-workers, the bingo workers, the spaghetti dinner puters-oners, the rummage sale folks. I’m ready for my new frontier……..

And the crickets chirp, and we’re alone, and the grass — the same brown spots reappear, not so green on this side of the mountain.

When my older daughter was little I used to read her The Cow Who Went Over the Mountain. The cow gathered her friends and took them to the other side of the mountain, all under the promise of what would be. For the cow the grass would be munchier, for the frog the bugs would be crunchier, for the ducks the water would be splashier, and for the pig the mud would be sloshier.

We know the moral here. It wasn’t to be. Just disappointment, and a longing for home.

Reconnecting:

Mary and Joseph had a plan. Jesus was surely among their friends and relatives. But they didn’t leave it at that, they looked for Him — and didn’t find Him.

How like us, how like the world. We inherently know He is out there and that the right relationships are out there; out there somewhere and we look. We search for Him and for our relationships in many ways — until we can’t find Him, until we find we are alone. Then what?

If we follow the choice of Mary and Joseph we choose our obligation, our commitment, what is right and proper and we move to reconnect. If we follow the path we think is easiest, maybe we head for the greener pastures; leaving Jesus, our families, those around us, and search for what we think is the better life — a life defined my the world’s standard of self. Do we choose the way of life or the way out?

The choice to reconnect, to rebuild, to take the occasionally harder choice is what this Sunday is about.

Where we are:

We are in a place that is very human. The sinful choice, the wide and easy paths are always available, usually marked with flashing neon signs that say shop here, gamble here, run away, leave the losers behind. That’s the road to the Vegas of our dreams where what we do and say is our own business, ours alone. What happens in that world stays in that world. The other path is the path Jesus points to, the one of relationship and family. It can be hard at times and is covered with the bumps of disappointment, hard work, leaking roofs, dented cars, defrosted freezers. It’s the spouse we bicker with but love dearly. The children who tax our taxes and our patience. The co-workers and parishioners who demand so much, who need so much. We are in a very human and frail place, but we have a way to get us through.

Where we will be:

I alluded to the show The Middle. After mom had her breakdown she discovered something wonderful. The rest of the family, each and every one, led by the father, were her source of reassurance. When Mary and Joseph found Jesus they found their source of assurance. These are not two different and separate assurances, two different things but the same. The assurance and the connections we seek must include God and each other.

Our human family is in search of connection, of relationship and the Holy Church shows us that the ideal model is found in the lifelong commitment of family, beginning in Holy Matrimony and lived in accord with the laws of God and His Holy Church. The family then extends beyond that at home to the family of neighbor-to-neighbor, co-worker to co-worker, citizen to citizen, all of us in God’s Holy Polish National Catholic Church. Those relationships, the family at home and the wider family of Christ are what we celebrate today. Each of these relationships and connections has God in its midst. Each of the relationships and every family that includes Jesus as its center destroys selfishness and opens the door to real joy. Jesus lives in each and His hand blesses each. His grace sustains us in our families, in our relationships.

The connection that include the Lord see us through every difficulty, every problem. Do problems occur, do things happen that damage relationships? Certainly! but we are reminded today, this day amidst all its problems and conflicts, breakdowns, apartness, separation, and aloneness that God is part of our family, part of our relationships, central to our life.

We have choices, we have many paths. We can choose to wallow in our secret desires and choose to live apart, alone, always in search of the greener pasture, or we can choose the way God has shown us, the way that destroys conflict, breakdown, apartness, separation, and aloneness. Finding Jesus, finding each other even in the midst of every stress, shows us a glimpse of the joy we will find, reconnected, in the family of humanity in God’s Kingdom.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.

Amen.

Homilies

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

First reading: Wisdom 2:12,17-20
—¨Psalm: Ps 54:3-6,8—¨
Epistle: James 3:16-18; James 4:1-3
Gospel: Mark 9:30-37

You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

The test:

Let’s start with today’s reading from Wisdom. We all know that the references in Wisdom are to the Jewish leaders persecution of the Messiah, that is factual, but where is the deeper meaning.

Peeling away the obvious we see meaning in the dichotomy between the desires of the leaders and the message of the Messiah. The leaders see the Messiah as: the One who is obnoxious to us; sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations.

The Jewish leaders had century upon century of legal interpretations to stand on. They had everything figured out from the how and when of washing ones hands to who and what the Messiah would be. Jesus didn’t fit that bill and they were perturbed, in fact angry because they knew better than God.

The Jewish leaders failed the test of true discipleship. They couldn’t set aside personal interpretations, personal opinions and follow the interpretation, the way shown them by God. How like the leaders of our day and age — religious and secular leaders.

Dependence:

St. James gives us a lesson in dependence, the lesson lost on the Jewish leaders and on our leaders today. What they miss is that discipleship starts in dependence, it starts in admitting our not knowing and in questioning every one of our motives. It may seem a little too analytical or self critical, and I don’t mean that we should downplay ourselves as ignorant, but we should question and compare. When we do, we place our reliance on God’s way over our way. We declare ourselves fully dependent on God’s wisdom, God’s way. God’s wisdom becomes the yardstick by which we measure.

St. James’ key point is that:

the wisdom from above is first of all pure,
then peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.

Fact checking:

As disciples we must compare and contrast what we do, what we think, what we believe is inspired against the wisdom from above. That wisdom is scripture and capital —T— Tradition. That is the truth inspired by the Holy Spirit and handed down to us.

Look what we will find in that truth: purity, peace, gentleness, compliance, mercy, good fruit from our work, consistency and sincerity. Look at the conflicts facing so many Churches and nations — and they can all be boiled down to a failure to fact check against Scripture and Tradition, a failure to rely on the wisdom from above, a failure to be childlike disciples.

We are subject to sin:

St. James also reminds us of the consequences of a failure to be dependent, a failure to fact check our actions and opinions against the wisdom from above. As the Jewish leaders and much of the Jewish nation missed the Messiah, as they failed in the test of discipleship so too are we subject to failure. It is expressed in all those things St. James mentions: wars, conflicts caused by our passions, covetousness, murder, envy, fighting and war, emptiness because we do not ask and when we do ask we seek after our own ends.

We are subject to fall into sin when we forget the source of wisdom and our call to be disciples of that wisdom. We fall in sin when we place ourselves ahead of and on top of God’s way in everything from our daily lives to the structure and teaching of the Holy Church.

Sin is manifested in being on-top:

Our sin is most manifest when we claim to speak for God, for the action of His Holy Spirit. It is manifested when we place ourselves on-top in relation to God thinking we have some unique and never heard of insight. Like the Apostles in the Gospel whose chief question was who shall be first among us. Each wanted to believe he was on top.

Have you ever heard someone mention a fresh inspiration from the Holy Spirit for our times? I’ve heard it called a fresh breath of the Spirit, an opening of windows, as if the Holy Spirit somehow needs a BreathSaver or a Renuzit to respond to our times.

Are our struggles that different, our times so vastly set apart from the history of the human condition? Of course not! Our sins are as old as Adam and our propensity to put ourselves above God, first-in-line, is no different than that day in the garden when Adam and Eve thought they could be like God; the day the Apostles argued about who was first.

We are dependent on the wisdom from above:

The wisdom from above is the purity of God’s truth. It isn’t something we need be haughty about, but something we must rely on, something we are dependent upon, that we check ourselves against. It is truth as old as history because it is the truth of God. When we become His disciples, His messengers, we set ourselves apart from the world’s way. We break from the habit of self-reliance, being on top, to God reliance. We stop delivering our message and deliver His message.

This is a matter of choice and of humility. It is not a matter of perfection, for, as I said, we will fall in sin, but when we do, when we fail in our discipleship, to whom shall we turn for redemption? If we are true disciples we turn to the wisdom from above.

True discipleship:

The Apostles were arguing along the way. First, the Gospel teaches us that they just didn’t get what Jesus was saying.

But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.

First they feared the wisdom from above, next:

They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest. —¨

Good job Apostles. Don’t rely on what God already said was important, on the wisdom from above, rather figure our who’s first, who’s on top, who has the insight of God. The Apostles were the first example of Church-gone-wrong for us, the making of church that is not of the Church but of us, of our whims, our desires, of our thinking we know better than God. They were so busy figuring out who’s on first they forgot Who is first.

Now don’t mistake the democratic nature of the PNCC for this type of demagoguery. Our democratic nature lies in the Church membership’s having a say over the secular matters of the Church, control of the assets and property of the Church in which the membership has rightly invested in and supported. This demagoguery goes to the issue of who is in charge of our beliefs, our theology, our Catholicity. It places man in the role of speaking for God. Watch out for those wolves in sheep’s clothing declaring they have all knowledge of the Spirit and righteousness. If it isn’t in scripture and Tradition beware.

[Jesus] said to them,—¨—If anyone wishes to be first,—¨he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.— —¨Taking a child, he placed it in the their midst,—¨ and putting his arms around it, he said to them,—¨ —Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;—¨ and whoever receives me,—¨ receives not me but the One who sent me.—

The child is the simplicity of the wisdom from on high. It is what we were given, our faith, our Catholicity, all we have and hold dear in our Holy Polish National Catholic Church. Disciples do not invent, but give. Disciples do not control, but love. Disciples rely on Scripture and Tradition, holding fast to the wisdom from on high and teaching what has been given.

The desires of this age are like the desires of the Jewish leaders, who relied on themselves and what they thought right and just. Those desires test and persecute Christ, they nail Him to the cross over and over. The desire of the disciple on the other hand is childlike humility, acceptance of God’s wisdom which surpasses that of man and yet loves him completely. The disciple asks rightly, believes rightly, acts rightly — holding the orthodox faith which gives purity, peace, gentleness, compliance, mercy, good fruit from our work, consistency and sincerity. Rely on that, fact check that, and stand in the Catholic faith taught and delivered to us. Doing so we will pass the test of true discipleship and inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen.

Homilies

Solemnity of Brotherly Love

First reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm: Ps 85:9-14
Epistle: 1 John 4:17-21
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…

We are changed

We are a new people, a people of the new covenant, a people born in love. We have been changed in every way imaginable and we are constantly growing into the people God calls us to become. From the moment we were baptized we have been on the road to change, renewal of life, and of dedication to fulfilling the love our Lord has given us.

Jesus’ coming ushered in this new covenant —“ but that was only the beginning. Often we mistake Jesus as a one time event, even an end point. If we think it all ended with Jesus’ ascension we would be wrong. At His ascension Jesus challenged us to take up the life He called us to, the Christian life in which every day is a step forward in the new covenant.

Jesus’ time on earth was not an experiment in magic or some sort of mystical transformation for humanity, it wasn’t some sort of cheep trick aimed at changing man, but was His gift of love by which we were changed and transformed into a people of the new covenant. In the new covenant we learn that we are to live love. Jesus’ coming was the mark in time from which something very special happened… freedom to love truly and rightly.

The old law is no more…

St. Paul often talks about the law as being about sin and death. He strongly stated that by Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, the marking points for the new covenant, we were freed from the law, freed to live forever in the love of God.

The law given to Moses was a prescription against sin. Like any drug it was meant to be used by people who were already sick. Freedom from the law does not mean that we won’t get sick, literally that we will fall in sin, but that our lives are not defined by sin. In the new covenant our falling is cured by living transformed lives defined by the love Jesus taught.

It starts with Jesus touching us

Last week’s Gospel was a prime example of the kind of love Jesus taught. As you recall a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment was brought to Jesus. First Jesus took him aside, away from the onlookers, and then He did something remarkable —“ Jesus healed by the power of touch and the word.

Jesus spit, touched the man’s tongue, and put His fingers in the man’s ears. He then spoke a word and the man’s ears were opened and he could speak clearly. I’m thinking that if Mary was there she would have been indignant and would have told Jesus to go wash His hands. When we hear that Gospel, and ones similar to it, we sense a definite ick factor. But what Jesus did was a perfect act of love. Jesus touched the man; He laid his hands on Him and made him whole. By loving the man Jesus opened his ears and his life to the message of love.

Jesus touches us to love us. He gave us the sacraments for that very reason, so He could enter into our lives through the hands of his ministers. Jesus wants to be with us and wants to show His love. Then He asks that we take His touch, His love, and share it with the world.

It works when we accept

Back to the ick factor… what if the man got grossed out and ran away? Well, he wouldn’t have been healed, but more so, he wouldn’t have been set free.

The starting point and the path that Jesus offers requires our full cooperation, just like the man cooperated with what Jesus was doing. This is what Bishop Hodur and the Church define as regeneration.

That process begins at baptism and wends its way through our lives till we reach a point where we actively engage the Lord and say yes to Him. Picture the revival meeting or the altar call in your head, people coming up and falling on their knees to accept Jesus. We may not be quite as dramatic —“ but you know what, that’s what we are called to do. We must make the choice; fall on our knees and say: —Yes Lord, I love you and I want to live by the love you taught.—

Be careful of the ick factor and don’t let it get in the way of true faith in our Lord and Savior. He is the one who spit, put His hands on the man’s tongue, put His fingers in his ears, made a mud of spit and dirt and placed it on another man’s eyes, and endured the cross —“ giving us His body and blood to eat and drink. True faith means that accepting Jesus means that we accept His commandment of love which transforms the ick of life into beauty, the commandment that collapses the former law into the love command:

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

That’s not the end

Do this, and you will live‘ requires that we do more than accept. We could show up for 10,000 altar calls, to justify ourselves but that will be of no avail. The one acceptance, acceptance of Jesus in our hearts and into our lives, makes us new and puts us on the road to heaven. It is what we do after acceptance that matters, our cooperation in living Jesus’ commandment of love.

I love the way Bishop Hodur stated the work of the Church. The Church is here to accept, help, and love all who seek Christ and abide in her, and if some should chose another path we wish them well and do not disparage them.

Isn’t that Christian love in action? Christian love means that we set aside the ick, the criticism, the disparaging, and every ill thought. Our transformed lives welcome, accept, hold up, love, and care for all. We journey together to heaven and we do not disparage those who seek another path to heaven. We journey together in the process of learning from the Church, taking its guidance as a means for improving the way we love each other —“ and all —“ for who is my neighbor.

If we focus on the Christianity of laws, criticism, ick, or he or she is not good enough, then we cannot claim to be Christians at all, for we will have fallen back into the old ways of the law, trying to change behaviors instead of changing our very identity.

We start in accepting Jesus Christ; we work on changing ourselves so that everything we are says that we live in Christ, loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Let’s get close

The time to get close is now. First, get close to Jesus. If you’ve never consciously done it, say yes to Him and invite Him to change your life, to change your identity. It happened to me at the Mission and Evangelization Workshop in Perth Amboy not that many years ago. We went to a Full Gospel Church to learn about that Church’s ministry. Sitting in the sanctuary and listening to one of their deacon’s describe the power of the Holy Spirit I asked Jesus to change me. The beauty of the moment —“ I’ll never forget it. The change, ask my wife, its on-going and didn’t happen overnight. But I know that the Lord is with me telling me constantly to love, to be transformed.

Next, let’s get close to those around us, here in church, at work, at home, in the neighborhood. Let’s find the people the world calls icky, the people we avoid or are uncomfortable with. It is time to start the process —“ to learn how to love as Jesus loves, to invite as Jesus invites.

This Solemnity marks our difference

Our Church has given us this beautiful Solemnity. Our Church echoes the words of Jesus —“ Come unto me! Pójdź za Mną! That is the call of love that goes forth from every Parish in the Holy Polish National Catholic Church. Come; do not count cost or past transgression. Do not dwell on the ick. We do not abide in hell fire and fear, red devils or criticism. All are welcome to join us —“ to be brothers and sisters living renewed and regenerated lives of love. We believe in God’s goodness – the seed He planted in each of us which takes shape from the moment we come to Him. We are transformed and on the road — becoming the loving people of God. Amen.

Homilies

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

First reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8
Psalm: Ps 15:2-5
Epistle: James 1:17-18,21-22, 27
Gospel: Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

—Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.—

Wrong-hearted:

Here we are, Youth Sunday, on the verge of a new school year and a new year in our School of Christian Living.

When discussing youth and the Church we often focus on the contents of today’s scripture. We recount the laws of the Lord and the do’s and don’ts which make everything very simple. We warn against the dangers of the world, of the false ethics imposed by the media and government. We hope and certainly pray that the Lord protect our children from danger and from the wrong path. We look at our list of bad stuff and ask that our children avoid:

evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.—¨

I don’t think any of us would want our children to be drawn into any of these. We hope for the best and fear a bit because we have to trust an educational system without a an objective center to help us in our task of raising children. For five days a week that system works against the one morning a week we pray, offer sacrifice, and teach our children in the way of the Lord. Something more is required so that our children avoid wrong-hearted choices; so that they come up in the way of the Lord.

Something more:

What can work miracles, what can make the difference, what is the something other?

That something other starts with us. We can make that miraculous intervention. What that takes is a consistent message. It doesn’t consist of preaching or lectures. Those have their place, but more important is the day-to-day life we lead. We can use the word example but that’s abstract. How about this:

Do we celebrate traditions in our home that center on the liturgical year — such as fasting on Fridays and Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent; that include joyful moments: Hey! you Christians get gifts on St. Nicholas Day? Both the fasts and the joys are teaching moments to be shared by family. What is our language like? Do we pray before every meal or are we too rushed? Do we eat together at a table like Jesus did or in front of the television? Do we hold our children accountable for their actions, the wrongs they may do? Do they apologize to those they may have hurt? Do we sit together and focus on homework or do we send our children off alone to suffer through it? Do we give the Church’s view of current events and the news — not to be judgmental — but to teach that there is an objective standard of behavior, that right and wrong do actually exist? Do we teach the art of charity or is everything on sale in the yard or on Amazon? Do we jump out of bed on Sunday morning in the joy of anticipation or is it obvious that it is drudgery?

Each of those things are the something more we can actually do. These are the practical steps for making a difference. There is also something more…

This school year we have confirmation and first communion classes. The reality — God’s gift of grace makes the biggest difference every week. The Holy Mass, penance, the Word, the Eucharist impart life changing and world changing grace. With those gifts, with true faith and belief in those gifts, and our cooperation with those gifts, our children will stay protected.

It comes from the heart:

Jesus told us: —From within people, from their hearts…— We understand what Jesus meant… that good and evil comes from the heart. The dangers out there, those in our homes, among the members of the Church, in society at large come from the heart. The good, the love Jesus calls us, our families, the Church to, that comes comes from the heart as well. To minister to our youth, to raise up our children and to hold them before the Lord we need to impart hearts that destroy wrong, that eliminate corruption. —¨

Brave heart:

A man I used to work with had a saying: —God hates cowards.— Not theologically or philosophically correct, but with a drop of truth. St. Paul writing to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:7) reminds us that:

God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control.

Timidity has been translated many ways — but essentially meaning that God gives us a spirit of courage, a brave spirit. We need to impart a message of bravery in proclaiming our faith. Our children need to know that they are allowed to be brave in the face of the world, friends, sin. This doesn’t mean that we should teach our youth to be offensive in bravely delivering the message, for every message must be delivered with love, but that they can be confident in its truth.

The spirit we have been given, which we pass on to our children, delivers Christian truth with courage and confidence. As the shirts and advertisements say: No Fear!

Steady heart:

In the second half of Psalm 51:10 we read: put a new and right spirit within me.

Again the translations vary, but essentially that new and right spirit is a steadfast spirit. Isn’t that our hope as well. We want our children to have a steady, steadfast heart.

What does that mean? No less that this: that they have a firm determination for the faith; that they be unshakable in the faith; that their faith convictions are firm; their statements and speech consistent; that they be unbendingly loyal and devoted defenders of Christ and His Holy Polish National Catholic Church.

A brave heart and a steady heart is given through the grace of God and our work.

Clean heart:

Psalm 51:10 also begins: Create in me a clean heart, O God.

While we are born with a clean heart we enter a world corrupted by original sin and our hearts… they take on that corruption. The corruption is alluring, is easy, is offered on a silver platter and we and they will fall over and over. Our children need to know that there is a way to freedom, to a clean heart. They do not need an expectation of perfection but an expectation of forgiveness.

Create in me a clean heart, O God begins in our desire to escape sin. It begins in an accountability to He who created us as calls us to everlasting life in the perfection of goodness.

Our children need to know that. We may be offering them a message of unattainable perfection – perfect grades, great relationships, alluring careers. We want all that for them and unfortunately we may build up just enough pressure so that they seek a surer way to get there, that is by the road of sin and failure. That sure road isn’t so sure and taking it… they may end up in abject failure. What then?

That is when they need to know that faced with human frailty, faced with the hurts they have imposed and the sins they have committed, there is a way out. They need to know that they can cry out: Create in me a clean heart, O God and that it will happen. They need to see us going to confession, need to see us asking for forgiveness and admitting wrong — not just to feel good or keep the peace — but to attain true reconciliation. Seeing us they will know its true.

True heart:

A brave, steady and clean heart combine in creating a true heart. This is what Jesus calls us, calls our children to. He is calling us to do all that is necessary, not just for our salvation but for our children’s and our grandchildren’s. Those gifts of the heart are what God offers, and what we are charged with delivering. The heart gifts counter the five-day-a-week regimen of the world. The heart gifts come in the regeneration of baptism, are supported by the sacraments which impart beautiful gifts of grace and continues in all we say and do to build their brave, steady and clean hearts. Amen.