Loving God First

Homily, Ordinary Sunday 30A

We live in an Information Age, constantly bombarded with endless words, images, advertisements, and competing ideas. I vaguely remember a time when cell phones were actually used primarily for making phone calls, and as I was growing up at home, we still had a couple sets of encyclopedias, which many people younger than I have probably never seen. Before the days of Wikipedia, when you had a question about something, instead of “Googling it” or asking Alexa or Siri, we would actually take a book off the shelf and try to find it alphabetically. In the sea of information available to us today with the Internet always at our fingertips or in our pockets, we can definitely understand the motivation for the scribe’s question to Jesus in today’s Gospel. What’s the main point? Could you narrow it down for us? What’s the most relevant information for me? What am I going to have to remember for the exam? “Which is the greatest of all the commandments?” 

 Instead of replying with one of the 10 Commandments and their familiar phrasing from the Exodus account, Jesus quotes one of the laws from the Book of Deuteronomy to emphasize not just what we must do, but also the why. The center and motivation of our response to God, what’s most important, is love, and that we love God totally, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Because there is one God who made the heavens and the earth and all that exists, He deserves everything in return. Jesus goes on to give a sort of bonus answer, the second greatest commandment: to “love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.” All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
Now it should seem rather obvious, but it’s important that we keep the first commandment as the first and our greatest responsibility, our top priority, and to keep the second as the second. Total love of God is more important than anything else, and love for our neighbor is next on the list. So many of the disorders and unhealthy patterns in our own lives, so much of the dysfunction in our relationships and in our families stems directly from placing love for myself above my love for God or neighbor. Or I place love for my neighbor, for what others might think of me or trying to please everyone around me, I place these concerns above my love for God, and I end up being unfaithful to God to please and to keep false peace with my neighbor.  

A common misconception that’s been around for quite a long time says that we can love God only through loving our neighbor. This is false and has led to major problems even within the Church. I’ve heard this error defended by appealing to the first letter of Saint John where he says, “Whoever does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Of course, John is not contradicting what Jesus says in the Gospel but warning against an empty piety that pretends to love God while despising everyone. We need both, both love of God and love of neighbor, and we can’t really have one without the other, but they’re not always the same thing, and our love for God needs to come first. And we don’t just love God through loving our neighbor. If we’re not setting aside time and energy each day just for prayer, for silence, to be alone in the presence of our God, our relationship with Him will not be what it needs to be, and all our other relationships suffer. God is First. And when He’s not, everything else is put out of order as well.  

Now even if we give God, let’s be generous and say that we even give Him two and a half hours every Sunday, that’s still less than 1.5% of our entire week. Not quite loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Each and every day, do we wake up and say to God, “Lord, I give this day to you. Whatever good I am able to do, whatever happens, whatever I have to suffer, I offer or endure it for love of You”? We are Catholic Christians not just on Saturdays or Sundays, but also on Tuesdays, and every other day of the week. The relationship we have with God should affect what we do every day, how we conduct ourselves in the workplace, in the classroom, on sports teams and recreation, in music and the arts, in the grocery store, even in heavy and incompetent traffic on the road. Do we live differently because we know Jesus Christ and because He knows us? Do we actually put God first in our lives, or is He relegated to second, third, or fourth?  

What can we start doing this week to help us remember God in our daily lives? Maybe something as simple as starting each day with the Morning Offering: “O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day, for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all my relatives and friends, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father. Amen.” 

What Belongs to God

Homily, Ordinary Sunday 29A

They say there are just two things guaranteed in this life: death and taxes. Most people are not too thrilled about either one. While we live this short life, we are called to “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” to serve well as citizens of a kingdom that is passing away. Even this well-known phrase from the Gospel illustrates how temporary kingdoms of this world tend to be. “Render unto Caesar.” Well, there aren’t any Caesars around anymore, or at least the names have changed because their kingdoms do not stand the test of time. And even the United States of America is no exception. Whether it’s Congress, the presidency, or the Supreme Court, or our State and local governments, there’s no guarantee that any of these will still be around in another hundred years.  

Even so, it’s important that we do uphold the law, pay our taxes, and respect lawful authority, authority that God Himself has entrusted to those who rule. This authority can be and often is abused by those who hold it in these earthly kingdoms, but God intends it for our good and the good ordering of society, for the blessings of peace and tranquility. In our first reading, the title “Messiah” or “Anointed One” is given to someone who’s not even Jewish. The pagan, Persian emperor Cyrus is called a “Messiah” or “Christ.” Even though Cyrus is a Gentile, he becomes an instrument of God as he gives the order for the Jews to be allowed to return to the Promised Land and rebuild their temple, as he brings an end to their lengthy Babylonian Exile. All authority ultimately comes from God, and when it is exercised wisely, even secular rulers cooperate with God’s plan for His creation. Even this pagan, foreign king could be an instrument in the hands of God. Still, the political approach that many of us often have—especially as we approach an election year—might be summarized more accurately in a line from the Fiddler on the Roof. In that musical, someone asks the Rabbi if there is a proper blessing for the emperor, for the Tsar of Russia. The Rabbi replies, “Of course! May God bless and keep the Tsar… far away from us!” 

If we owe respect and obedience and the aid of our prayers to those who rule in earthly kingdoms that are passing away during our short stay in this life, we owe much more to the One whose kingdom will have no end, to God Himself, who exercises authority only and always for our genuine good. To Jesus Christ, who “died and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living” (Romans 14:9). Give “to God what belongs to God.” Jesus asks whose image and inscription is on the Roman coin because He also means for us to ask: what is it that bears God’s image and God’s inscription? Each of us was made in God’s image and reborn through Baptism into the dignity of God’s likeness, and so we must give our entire selves, our life, our death, everything we are, back to God. Human beings—bearing God’s image and inscription—are what belong most properly to God. God’s inscription is on our hearts and our minds, where God has inscribed His own Law through the Holy Spirit given to us, deserving our full obedience, a Law that is higher and far more perfect than any law of the land (cf. Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10; Rom. 2:15; 2 Cor. 1:22). 

Each one of us is given only a short time in this life, the blink of an eye against the backdrop of eternity. Death—like taxes—is a guarantee. The mortality rate of human beings is still 100%. Make friends for yourselves with false and fleeting wealth, so that when this life is over, the Saints may welcome you into eternal dwellings (cf. Luke 16:9). In this Eucharist, God gives us everything in giving us Jesus Himself, but how often do we fail to respond to God’s great generosity? Or we respond half-heartedly, giving God only what’s left over. How often are we so set on spending our short life on our own small plans and trivial goals that we never open ourselves up to God’s designs for us? 

The one purpose of our life on this earth is to become part of God’s heavenly and everlasting kingdom, safe from the rise and fall of so many earthly kingdoms. We only get one life, and no one knows how long it will be. God alone can satisfy our infinite desires. God alone is worthy of our unconditional allegiance. Why not let God be in charge of your life? His reign will never come to an end, and those who have served Him faithfully in this life will also reign with Him forever in the life and world to come. 

The Wedding Garment Freely Offered

Homily, Ordinary Sunday 28A

If you’ve been to a Baptism recently or even if it’s been a while, you may remember that just after the person is baptized and anointed with Sacred Chrism, there’s a comment about the white garment that the newly baptized wears. Similar to seeing the servers and priest wearing white albs at every Mass. The priest says to the newly baptized, “You have become a new creation and have clothed yourself in Christ. May this white garment be a sign to you of your Christian dignity. With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring it unstained into eternal life.” Of course, this white baptismal garment is also reminiscent of the “wedding garment” mentioned in today’s Gospel.

The reaction of the king to the guest who is found lacking a wedding garment can seem rather harsh and startling to us. “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.” What’s the big deal? Should he really have been cast out just because of what he was wearing or not wearing? Especially since we were just told that those who were originally invited rejected the invitation, and many others were invited unexpectedly at the last minute, probably with very little time to prepare themselves properly.

Well, one thing about weddings at the time of Jesus and in that part of the world, it was customary that as you entered the feast—as you entered the king’s house, the palace—the servants would be handing out wedding garments to any guest who needed one. If you didn’t have a wedding garment of your own but still came to the feast, you’d be offered a wedding garment from the one hosting the wedding as you come in. That’s why, in the parable, when the king asks the guest why he’s not wearing one, the guest makes no reply. He had no excuse, and so, “he was reduced to silence.”

God Himself gives us everything we need to be found worthy of His Son’s wedding feast, but we often neglect the graces and mercies of God. We say, “No thanks, I’m good. I’m comfortable in my sin.” The wedding garment, just like the baptismal garment, is really a symbol for the gift of God’s sanctifying grace, His dwelling within us. The one thing that’s going to matter at the end of our lives, and what’s going to determine where we spend eternity is whether we persevere in the state of grace or in a state of mortal sin. Each of us was given a wedding garment as we entered the Church through the Sacrament of Baptism. How well have we kept our Christian dignity unstained throughout the years of our life? Even when we do fall into mortal sin, God freely gives us the opportunity of being washed clean once again through the Sacrament of Confession. How faithfully do we avail ourselves of such a great opportunity to receive the mercy of God? God also gives us every grace we need to overcome temptation and persevere in His grace in our daily lives, to be faithful in attending this Wedding Feast of the Eucharist every Sunday and day of obligation. To avoid drunkenness and sexual immorality. To avoid every mortal sin. But we often say to God, “No thanks, I’m good. I’m comfortable in my sins.”

But at the end of our lives, there’s just going to be basically one question: What will it profit a man to gain the whole world but to forfeit his soul? Maybe just to gain a couple more hours of work or relaxation on Sunday but to forfeit his soul? To gain the very temporary pleasures of this passing world in exchange for unrelenting torments in eternity? And just like the guest in today’s Gospel, we’ll have no excuse and be reduced to silence when we face that judgment.

If you’re in the state of grace right now, do whatever you need, to remain in the state of grace. If you’re not, get to Confession, and make whatever change in life you need, to get yourself right with God. There’s really nothing else that’s going to matter as much in, say, 100 years, when all of us will be gone from this world. If we’re not ready to enter God’s wedding feast today, what makes us think we will be by the end of our lives, especially considering that none of us knows the day or the hour when the Lord will call us? Prepare yourself for eternity today, and every day of your life, and you will have no regrets.

You Are What You Eat & the Media You Consume

Homily, Ordinary Sunday 27A

There’s an old familiar saying that “You are what you eat.” The basic idea is that if you eat healthy foods, you’ll be healthy and feel healthy, but if you eat a lot of candy and junk food, you’ll end up feeling like junk. And today, there’s no end to the variety of diets that people observe, sometimes very meticulously, and for some especially with food allergies, there’s very good reason for that. But even people who are disciplined in observing very strict diets when it comes to the food that they consume are often not nearly as picky when it comes to other things that we consume, not with our mouths and stomach, but with our eyes and ears, what we take into our thoughts and minds. 

Saint Paul urges us in our second reading, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Now, how many of us when we go to see a movie or when we turn on the TV or computer to watch a show, or to get on Facebook or Twitter, or to watch the news—how many of us come away from the experience saying, “Oh, how lovely, how gracious, honorable, just, pure, excellent, and worthy of praise, what I’ve just consumed, seen and heard”? Or are we more often moved to anger, frustration, anxiety, envy, lust, and every other disordered passion by so much of the media that we consume? In fact, that’s usually the exact intention of those who produce it, to focus on what’s sensationalized, scandalous, jarring, weird, and memorable. What often makes for riveting entertainment and news casting today is hardly ever what’s going to make us into better people, better equipped to deal with the stresses of our everyday lives, and the problems that are close at hand that are actually within our area of influence and personal responsibility. 

Saint Paul understood what every good Christian and what every good psychologist understands: that what we consume through our eyes and ears makes its way into our thoughts, and our thoughts affect the words that we speak or the words that we fail to speak, and our thoughts and words affect the actions that we take and the actions that we put off. Usually far more important than the food that we eat, when it comes to the state of our soul and spiritual life, how discerning and disciplined are we in the kind and quality and amount of media that we consume? You are what you eat. You become what you consume. If we’re constantly filling our minds and thoughts with bad news, with gossip, falsehoods, and exaggerations, what affect does that have? And in comparison, how often do we ever consume the Word of God by reading and reflecting upon Sacred Scripture? By consuming the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ? And how does our time spent on Good News compare to the amount of time we spend consuming bad news? 

Now I’m not suggesting going off the grid or burying our heads in the sand, but just as we can commit the sin of gluttony when it comes to food and drink, there are definitely major excesses and lack of temperance when it comes to consuming news media. If we want to bear good fruit in God’s vineyard, we need to have good nourishment for our spiritual lives and proper balance. If you’re already reading the Good News, the Gospels and the Scriptures for just as much time or more than what you spend on other entertainment and media, you might be in a better place, but I know that’s certainly an area where I can still grow and be more disciplined in my spiritual diet, and I’m betting I’m not the only one.

“Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” During this month of the Rosary, October is dedicated in a special way to Our Lady of the Rosary, we have another opportunity to recommit ourselves to meditating often—hopefully daily—meditating upon the mysteries of the lives of Jesus and His Mother Mary. There is nothing more excellent or worthy of praise, no better news than all that God did in Christ His Son and in the Blessed and Glorious Virgin Mary. There’s no better nourishment for our spiritual lives than to allow what we see and hear in Jesus and Mary to guide and direct all our thoughts, all our words, all our actions, that we may bear good fruit for God at the proper times, fruit that will last even unto eternal life. 

Shameless for the Gospel

Homily, Ordinary Sunday 26A

A couple Thursdays ago, September 21 was the Feast of St. Matthew, probably the most famous tax collector or IRS agent of all time. And it’s worth asking the question, What did Jesus see in Matthew, sitting at his customs post, that prompted Jesus to say to him, “Follow Me”? To call Matthew not only to become an Apostle who would carry the Gospel to ends of the earth in his own lifetime, but also to be an Evangelist, one of only four to leave an inspired written account of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The Gospel according to St. Matthew is probably the single most widely-read book of all time. And it wasn’t just Matthew. In the Gospel passage we just heard, there were many other tax collectors, and prostitutes, who Jesus tells us were some of the most receptive and responsive to the message of repentance proclaimed by Jesus and by His cousin John the Baptist. They were among the first ones “entering the kingdom of God.” 

So what was special about tax collectors and prostitutes at the time of Jesus? What did they have in common? Well, unlike “the chief priests and the elders of the people,” tax collectors and prostitutes were both groups of public sinners. Everyone knew and could recognize them as sinners. Tax collectors were notorious as collaborators with the Roman oppressors of the Jews. They were seen as traitors to their own people and nation, and they were known to collect more than was necessary, to increase their own wages. And they collected taxes in person. At that time, it wasn’t just an impersonal process of having a portion of your income withheld each month to be sent by your employer to some government office far away, but your local tax collector had a face, and Matthew’s would have been a recognizable one. Prostitutes were also well-known in those communities and had a recognizable way of dressing and conducting themselves. 

Tax collectors and prostitutes weren’t able to hide behind any façade or bother pretending to be great and admirable people in their own communities. There was an authenticity and sincerity about them. They knew that they were weak, they knew themselves to be sinners—and were constantly reminded of that by the people around them, even on a daily basis—and they knew that they could not save themselves. So when they encountered the mercy of God in Christ, it was able to actually reach to their hearts and transform them, instead of meeting resistance from so many false fronts and the masks of self-sufficiency that so many of us tend to hide behind. 

This sort of rough and unrefined sincerity, humility, authenticity that so many tax collectors and prostitutes had, that allowed them to be so receptive and responsive to the Gospel, we might also refer to as a sort of shamelessness. Now shamelessness is not always a good thing. It can often be very bad. There are healthy forms of shame that hopefully keep us from engaging in sinful activities. But the tax collectors and prostitutes of that time must have had a certain amount of shamelessness, of not caring what other people thought or said about them. St. Matthew was used to being hated by the people around him, so then when He encounters this strange preacher from Nazareth and begins following Him, and hears Jesus say things like, “Blessed are you when they insult you, and persecute you, and utter every kind of evil against you.” “You will be hated by all because of my Name.” St. Matthew must have been thinking to himself, I’m way ahead of you on that front. 

There is a certain shamelessness for the Gospel that every Christian needs to have, especially in this day and age. To care far more for what God thinks of us rather than what the people around us might say. Because along with healthy forms of shame that hopefully keep us out of too much trouble, we know all too well of so many unhealthy forms of shame, peer pressure, and societal standards that can steer us very wrong. Without a shamelessness and a real fortitude for the Gospel today, it’s only going to be a matter of time before we cave to the mob, whether that’s the mob that burns down cities, loots businesses, and uses threats to circumvent our own justice system, or the social media mob that threatens to “cancel” and “de-platform” anyone who doesn’t have all the most acceptable opinions about everything. 

If we’ve never had much practice at holding a different opinion from the prevailing culture around us, and actually being willing to make that known, to not just be silent about what’s happening in the world; if we don’t develop a shamelessness for the Gospel, and a backbone, and develop these soon, we won’t be willing to stand with God against whatever mob that threatens, when things actually get difficult. St. Matthew—once a tax collector shameless in his pursuit of wealth—would eventually lay down his own life in witness to Jesus and His Gospel. Don’t be so naïve as to think that the same thing might not be demanded of some of us one day. Prepare yourself now for the trials that lie ahead. Learn to stand with God here on earth, so that when you meet Him in death, you will not blush with shame.