Homily: 2.9.14. Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Salt and Light"

Is 58:7-10:3; Cor 2:1-5; Mt 5: 13-16

Salt and Light. Salt preserves and purifies. Light leads us forward. The message today is a simple one: Our good works preserve us in goodness. They lead to good for others.

Our baptismal light sheds light on others. Jesus says, "Let your light shine before others." It is thrown out in front of us. The focus is not on us (Margaret Ralph, Breaking Open the Lectionary: Cycle A, 59). Our good deeds throw Christ’s light on situations. This week we hear Christ announce the corporal works of mercy, good deeds: caring for the hungry, the naked, the homeless in the first reading. Today we also call these acts of justice. These acts reveal a loving God and they help others to believe in a loving God. We can do these acts out of duty, obligation, guilt and even for income tax deductions! (It’s okay to have mixed motivations. God can work all these together for the good,” as St. Paul tells us.) 

In the second reading St. Paul says, “I came to you in weakness.” Like Paul, our weakness can bear light. That is, it can lead us to identify with the weakness of others: the hungry, homeless, naked as the first reading tells. We have all known weakness and suffering. Our suffering can lead us to identify with those who suffer.  That’s how the salt comes in. It can purify us; that is, cleanse us from sin. Isaiah tells us today “Your wound will be healed and your light will shine.”

When I was a boy, I was prone to getting skin rashes when I played with the neighborhood kids in the woods near my house.  Because we lived near the ocean, my father would take us to the beach on Sunday.  He believed that the salt water was a cure-all; that it would clear up my skin rash.  It often did.  Our good deeds clear up our souls.  Through the grace of Christ working in us, our good deeds are like salt, cleansing us of sin, of all this is petty in us. Our wound is healed. The salt preserves us in virtue as it purifies us.  Our acts of justice purify us; we hear this in both the Hebrew and the Christian scriptures.  They grant us time off purgatory.  I think of this often when I am making a hospital call—especially the ones in the middle of the night. I am making up for my sins! These good deeds, in other words, “merit us salvation,” as the Eucharistic Prayers states.

Our good deeds bring light to others and they give glory to God. Men and women can believe in a loving God. This weekend in the bulletin you will find again information on BUILD.  It is one way to let your light shine. Go, throw your light!

Homily, 2.2.14. Feast of the Presentation. "We Present Ourselves."

Homily, Feast of the Presentation

Mal 3:1-4; Heb 2:14-18; Luke 2:22-40

La Presentación. The Presentation. Our Latino sisters and brothers understand this so well. In addition to the Rite of Baptism, they also have something called La Presentación, the Presentation. The child is presented to God in much the way we see in the Gospel today, the way Mary and Joseph presented Jesus. It is an act of dedication or consecration. It begins in infancy and grows through life. Notice that we hear Jesus grew in wisdom, age and grace. Just like us!

Scripture scholar Richard Sklba makes the point about growing in our consecration to God as we cooperate. “Although the action of Christ may be once and for all, the effect of that reality in our lives is not; it continues to deepen or diminish. Being ‘consecrated,’ like being ‘perfected,’ is a lifetime process (Richard J. Sklba. Fire Starters. Liturgical Press. Collegeville, MN: 2013. p 44).

How do we continue to grow in our dedication or consecration to God? Vatican II teaches that the call to holiness is universal. It is also perennial. Hopefully with each passing year, we grow in holiness; that is, we grow to be conformed more closely to his image. It depends on what we do with our freedom.

As I said last week, we are an intentional formation community as a university parish, Newman Center. Everything we do is designed to foster the growth of our students, and our own as well, as we support and nurture them. It is never easy, and sometimes it is difficult. This is how we grow. It wasn’t easy for Mary and Joseph either.

This is a great feast for parents. It illustrates what parents go through and we can look ahead to see what Mary and Joseph will suffer as they raise this child. We don’t hear much about Jesus again until he’s twelve when he is not presented in the temple, but rather, he presents himself in the temple, teaching the teachers. As much as Mary and Joseph suffered on that occasion, looking for a lost child, they also prepared him for this moment in his destiny. This is what all good parents do, forming their children to meet their futures. Then you trust your children to God just as Mary and Joseph did. We trust that God will be there, present and active.

As Mary and Joseph, Anna and Simeon waited for the coming of this child, so we, too, wait for the Holy Spirit to assist us in our own growth in dedication to God and God’s work.

Lent is coming soon. We can plan now for the works and activities that will assist us in growing in our dedication to God as we present our lives to him in service and in praise.

In the end Mary presented here son yet again – at the foot of the Cross. The human formation that he had received form Mary and Joseph had prepared him to present his life to God the Father: “Father, into your hand I commend my Spirit. In the end we all present our lives to God. If we have cooperated with God’s grace, as Alice Camille has noted, Mary will be there to assist us just as she did her Son.

Risen Moments, Easter Hope

Pastor Note for Easter Sunday

He is Risen. Let us rejoice!

“Christ broke the prison bars of death,” the Exultet of the Easter Vigil proclaims, and Christ’s “Glory floods the earth,” we hear. The Exultet tells us that Christ continually purifies us of our weaknesses and failures, all that is sinful within us. Christ does that for us as individuals and Christ does that for us as a Church. We hear in the prophetic Scriptures, “He shall purify” (Malachi 3:3). That is Good News of the greatest magnitude. None of us has yet experienced the fullness of the Resurrection so it can be difficult for us to comprehend this mystery. But we have hints of it whenever we are renewed by encouragement or hope in the midst of all our losses, all our griefs. Let us ‘strain forward’ (Philippians 3:16), as St. Paul says, choosing the hope, peace and confidence that only the Risen Christ can give us! May we choose this Eastertide to recognize these ‘risen moments’ in our lives for the Greater Glory of God. Alleluia!

Father Al

See our complete Holy Week schedule on our website. Please note that there are no evening Masses on Easter Sunday.

Scenes from morning adoration at UK Newman Center

UK students in early morning adoration, Eucharistic chapel. 4.8.2011

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, Eucharistic Chapel, Holy Spirit Parish, Newman Center, 4.8.2011

'Crucifixus,' by Victor Hammer, friend of Thomas Merton, Eucharistic Chapel, Holy Spirit Parish, Newman Center

UK students and FOCUS missionaries, early morning adoration, Eucharistic Adoration, Holy Spirit Parish, Newman Center

Matt McCartney (right), FOCUS team director, and UKstudent, Joseph Gieske (on bike), after adoration in Newman Center courtyard, 4.8.2011

Priestly Ordination. Imposition of Hands by Bishop Ronald Gainer. May 17, 2008

Cathedral of Christ the King, Lexington, Kentucky
May 17, 2008

Homily. Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. "Babette's Feast"

Homily for Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Sir 15:15-20; Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5: 17-37

From the Beatitudes two weeks ago, to salt and light last week to right conduct and the law this week. Scripture scholar Alice Camille says we don’t like the law. Let’s face it: we all know that a yellow traffic light means to speed up, right? She says there is tendency in us to evade them if we can –- in violations for speeding, parking and traffic lights. But in our heart of hearts we also know that law is to protect us. At intersections, what if we all went when we wanted? The law saves us. St. Thomas More said to his son-in-law, Will Roper: “England is planted think with laws. If we cut them down – … who could stand in the winds that would blow?” This is part of ‘God’s wisdom,’ noted in the second reading. The law preserves us. In the gospel today, the focus is on law, not civil, but divine. It is relational -- the way we treat others: relationships. It’s a basic principle in the spiritual life that the way we treat others reveals the way we treat God, as well. The locus is the heart. Christ is saying that our behavior must not disregard the letter, but get to the spirit. Today we call this integration.

Barbara Reid, O.P. says it starts with little things. Anger toward someone, unchecked, can lead to violence and lust can lead to adultery. So it’s important that we monitor these feelings. Moreover, seeking reconciliation with others and with God leads to conversion of heart, interior conversion. I’ve joined Netflix and I’m viewing films I missed. I was looking at a 80s film, Babette’s Feast. It’s about a bereft French chef named Babette who is taken in by a church community in seaside Scandinavian town. To express her gratitude she gives all she has in money to prepare a feast for them. The final scene shows these church people enjoying a great meal together. They had split into factions, but the meal moves their hearts to forgive each other their petty mistreatments – and they say it, too. It is symbolic of the Eucharistic liturgy which is meant to be transformative.

Barbara Reid suggests we emulate St. Therese of Lisieux, ‘the little flower,’ in her ‘little way.’ She did little things out of love for God: e.g. while chopping vegetables in the kitchen, she practice courtesy toward a sister, also at the chopping block, who got on her nerves -- yes, even in the cloistered monasteries of nuns! That is why she is an example to us all. Because she shows us in the ordinary things of life, we can grow in holiness and move toward perfection which is to say, toward God. In little things like this, we move toward God. It’s all in the details.

So can do an act of kindness this week and expand in heart? Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, a golden opportunity. (And today is World Marriage Day.) Don’t say, “O she knows I love her.” That’s what people say about God, too. It baloney. Say it. Do it. It’s all in the details. It gets to the heart!

Homily. Baptism of the Lord and "The King's Speech"

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

Is 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10: 34-38; Matt 3:13-17

Today Jesus decides to get baptized. He is prompted to do this, “to fulfill all righteousness.” John knows that Jesus is greater so he resists. His protest is what spiritual directors call ‘resistance” to God’s activity. But Jesus persists. John eventually “allows it.” Jesus goes down into the water. Last week, an infant is manifested to the nations. This week there is another revelation: an adult comes to a sense of himself in Spirit and power. The Spirit appears, Matthew says, “like a dove” and in a voice: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Jesus feels the overwhelming love of his Father.

The Spirit’s in-breaking leads Jesus into the desert to ponder what the Father expects him to do. After that he begins his public life, revealing the inner life of the Father and their Spirit in his ministry of teaching, healing, setting free. In doing this he fulfills “all righteousness.” This is the prophecy of Isaiah we hear this morning: calling out “prisoners from the dungeon.” The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins describes Jesus’ recognition of his mission in this way: “What I do is me. For this I come.”

You and I receive this in-breaking of the Spirit -- the inner life of the Son, the Father and their Spirit -– in baptism. It is this we celebrate today. The life of the Spirit breaks out in us at different times in our lives as we, like Jesus, fulfill God’s plan and “fulfill all righteousness” in our own lives. We see Peter in the reading from Acts today speaking boldly in the Spirit, Peter who had formerly been so imprisoned by fear that he betrayed Jesus.

This in-breaking and breaking-out of the Spirit is depicted in the current film The King’s Speech. The King’s teacher is right out of Isaiah, bringing out “prisoners from confinement.” The King, like John the Baptist, is resistant and bound by fear.  One can see the electrifying moment when the Spirit breaks out in King George VI. He finds his voice. Theologian Rosemary Haughton in The Transformation of Man calls it “the release of Power.” It's an experience of God’s love: “With you I am well pleased.” Albert Windsor comes to himself in Spirit and power. It is the recognition: “What I do is me. For this I come” – by Divine Right.

Today is a day for us to think of the mentors in our own lives who have brought us to ourselves, out of the dungeon to a sense of the identity God created us to express. It is a day to thank God for these mentors, living or dead. It is a day to ponder our own roles as mentors, to recall those we have called from confinement and set free to be who God intends for them.

Today, we bring Christmas to a close. Like Jesus, we go out to our public lives, knowing ‘What we do is not us -- but Christ. This is why we come’ as Christians. This parish, the parish of the Holy Spirit at the University of Kentucky, is an intentional formation community. Like the teacher-therapist in the film, we create the natural conditions for God’s Holy Spirit to ‘break out’ in our university students. The Spirit continues to break out in us as well if we don’t resist and “allow it.” All of our religious education programs for our children do the same. All of you at home do this, too, as the ‘first and primary religious educators’ of your children.

Christ is born again today, as an adult, in this feast. Christ is born in us if we ‘allow it.” The teacher-therapist participated in the transformation of a man imprisoned by physical and emotional abuse as well as by a speech defect. We participate with Christ in the transformation of those given to us. Together we all work with Christ in the transformation of the world. This is an epiphany, to be sure, a new revelation to the world.