Sunday, III Easter
(John 21)
Peter is not the model disciple. That distinction belongs to the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” But Peter is the disciple with whom most of us identify. This is so for several reasons. The four gospels picture Peter in a variety of situations – from earning his livelihood to questioning the Lord about his teaching. Also, Peter presents himself as a frustratingly fallible person like most of us. He begins to doubt when walking on water and falls asleep when Jesus asks him and two others to pray. Perhaps the Gospel of John includes the positive encounter between Jesus and Peter as its last scene in order to shore us up in our struggle of faith.
Peter, of course, denied Jesus three times when he was in need of support. It was a dismal display of cowardice because Peter had bragged that he would lay down his life for Jesus. As a way for Peter to compensate for his failure, Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. We should view each question as an opportunity to probe who Jesus is. We should also hear Jesus make a distinctive demand on us at each level of our understanding.
First, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him “more than these.” “These” may refer to the other disciples. Or Jesus’ question may ask whether Peter loves him more than he loves his fishing gear. Let’s assume this latter meaning and ask ourselves if we love Jesus more than the things that bring us satisfaction. Do we love him more than our jobs – selling real estate or providing physical therapy? Do we love him more than our pleasures – watching football or ballroom dancing? Do we love him more than our joys – coming home in the evening or sharing coffee with a trusted friend? Of course, we do, so Jesus tells us along with Peter to feed his lambs. We do so by always treating people as ends in themselves with their own needs and limitations. We should never look on another human being as a stepping stone to our own gratification.
Jesus’ second question is simpler but deeper. He asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He may want Peter to consider carefully the particular human being standing before him. Does he love Jesus, the man who taught the thousands, breaded the bread-less, and healed the helpless? As remote as the biblical times are, we still love Jesus for all his virtue. It may sound strange to have a love relationship with a person that walked the earth two thousand years ago. Yet many people have an affection for a spouse that outlives death. Some keep a similar devotion for a personality like Elvis or Marilyn. Why can we not harbor such unwavering affection for Jesus? We express our love for Jesus by imitating his goodness. Jesus wants us as well as Peter to tend his sheep. Like Jesus we are to enlighten and encourage those around us by always speaking the truth in love.
The third time Jesus questions Peter he fathoms the depth of his own identity. Does Peter love Jesus as God? This inquiry challenges us when we consider all the evil in the world that God seems to permit? The tragedy this past week at Virginia Tech has raised the question again in the hearts of many. If God exists, they ask, how could He allow such massive suffering? Maybe God exists, but He doesn’t care about the massacre of thirty-two innocent people and the self-slaughter of one pitiful maniac. Then is he worthy of our love? However, neither the option that God doesn’t exist nor that He doesn’t care is tenable for us. No, we believe in a gracious and all-powerful God and love Him with all our hearts even though we do not completely understand His ways. In fact, we believe in and love Him because He is a mystery beyond our understanding. If we could understand Him fully, then He would not really be worthy of our awe and worship. We only know that He has gifted us with life and shared our suffering on the cross! He wants us in turn to feed his sheep, i.e., to be a Samaritan to each person we meet out of our love for Him.
We look forward to a positive encounter between Jesus Christ and ourselves at death. We can imagine ourselves coming before the heavenly throne. There Christ asks us something like, “Do you love me?” We have a question for him as well. “Why,” we will ask, “is there such massive suffering in the world?” He will look on us with the joy of one coming home in the evening. Then he will answer us with the tenderness of a trusted friend over coffee. But we won’t understand Him anymore than before. In his divinity Christ will always remain a mystery worthy of our awe and worship. Christ always remains worthy of our awe and worship.
Homilette for Friday, April 20, 2007
Friday, II Easter
(John 6)
A Jewish friend whom I saw on the day before Passover remarked how the feast is an excuse for a party. He was being a bit irreverent, but what he said was on the mark. Passover gives reason to rejoice as it celebrates Israel’s release from Egyptian slave gangs to Sinai’s song of freedom.
John the Evangelist notes that Jesus feeds the crowds at Passover time. This is not just a minor detail to add realism to the story. Rather, it frames the story in gold. It tells us that Jesus’ feeding the five thousand men and an untold number of women and children has a liberation theme. The people’s attention to Jesus frees them from helpless attachment to sin and inspires a responsive life of virtue. The fact that the people sate themselves and still find abundant leftovers illustrates Jesus’ accomplishment.
We can find ourselves involved in this same development at Mass. The Word of God prunes our vices while the Eucharistic bread and wine charge our lives with grace. We find ourselves increasingly free of egotistic concerns. Indeed, we can more readily give ourselves to the Lord in love.
(John 6)
A Jewish friend whom I saw on the day before Passover remarked how the feast is an excuse for a party. He was being a bit irreverent, but what he said was on the mark. Passover gives reason to rejoice as it celebrates Israel’s release from Egyptian slave gangs to Sinai’s song of freedom.
John the Evangelist notes that Jesus feeds the crowds at Passover time. This is not just a minor detail to add realism to the story. Rather, it frames the story in gold. It tells us that Jesus’ feeding the five thousand men and an untold number of women and children has a liberation theme. The people’s attention to Jesus frees them from helpless attachment to sin and inspires a responsive life of virtue. The fact that the people sate themselves and still find abundant leftovers illustrates Jesus’ accomplishment.
We can find ourselves involved in this same development at Mass. The Word of God prunes our vices while the Eucharistic bread and wine charge our lives with grace. We find ourselves increasingly free of egotistic concerns. Indeed, we can more readily give ourselves to the Lord in love.
Homilette for Thursday, April 19, 2007
Thursday, II Easter
(Acts 5)
Although he may not have said it, we can easily imagine Cho Seung-Hui using Peter’s defense in the first reading today. Deranged people have often asserted, “We must obey God rather than men,” to warrant ghastly activities. Of course, God never commands killing innocent people or any other immoral activity.
Furthermore, any “private revelation” must be scrutinized with utmost care for legitimacy. Claiming God’s direction for weird behavior -- as Jim Jones and Osama bin Laden have done -- makes religion increasingly suspect. Despite the overwhelmingly positive contribution religion has made to civilization, many today are ready to dismiss it as detrimental to human well-being.
St. Joan of Arc claimed to have revelations from God through the saints. Some thought that she too might be deranged and her revelations folly. She, however, provided a test that would legitimate what God had told her. When she was asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: “If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.” Such humility – and not the illusion of grandeur and power – indicates the true presence of God.
(Acts 5)
Although he may not have said it, we can easily imagine Cho Seung-Hui using Peter’s defense in the first reading today. Deranged people have often asserted, “We must obey God rather than men,” to warrant ghastly activities. Of course, God never commands killing innocent people or any other immoral activity.
Furthermore, any “private revelation” must be scrutinized with utmost care for legitimacy. Claiming God’s direction for weird behavior -- as Jim Jones and Osama bin Laden have done -- makes religion increasingly suspect. Despite the overwhelmingly positive contribution religion has made to civilization, many today are ready to dismiss it as detrimental to human well-being.
St. Joan of Arc claimed to have revelations from God through the saints. Some thought that she too might be deranged and her revelations folly. She, however, provided a test that would legitimate what God had told her. When she was asked if she knew that she was in God's grace, she replied: “If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there.” Such humility – and not the illusion of grandeur and power – indicates the true presence of God.
Homilette for Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Wednesday, II Easter
(John3)
Why did it happen? Most everyone today wants to know how such a massacre as that at Virginia Tech could take place in America today. There will be no shortage of predictable answers.
Many have already pointed their fingers at school administrators. They criticize the failure to close down the school and send out a warning after the first shots were fired.
Moralizers will have their say. From the left they will charge that permissive gun laws make every meeting place in the country a potential blood bath. From the right they will argue as forcefully that sex and violence in music and movies start time bombs ticking in many individuals.
God certainly will be accused for not intervening. Some will come to his defense noting that Virginia Tech is a classic case of free will running amok. Others will rebut, “Whose will is really free?” And, they will add, “Does not God’s power transcend human freedom?”
The Gospel of John does not provide a detailed answer to why Virginia Techs take place. It merely says that people prefer darkness to light. From almost the very beginning the world has been marred by wickedness, and it is not about to stop.
The gospel then goes to some lengths to show God acting to relieve the suffering. He sends His son to teach the world better ways than the narrow self-interests most people pursue. He also gives His son on the cross, at least as cruel a death as that rendered by an automatic pistol. He does this, first, to show solidarity with the suffering around the world and through the ages. But much more significantly, His gift provides us the opportunity to stand with him in death so that we may experience the resurrection which inevitably follows.
(John3)
Why did it happen? Most everyone today wants to know how such a massacre as that at Virginia Tech could take place in America today. There will be no shortage of predictable answers.
Many have already pointed their fingers at school administrators. They criticize the failure to close down the school and send out a warning after the first shots were fired.
Moralizers will have their say. From the left they will charge that permissive gun laws make every meeting place in the country a potential blood bath. From the right they will argue as forcefully that sex and violence in music and movies start time bombs ticking in many individuals.
God certainly will be accused for not intervening. Some will come to his defense noting that Virginia Tech is a classic case of free will running amok. Others will rebut, “Whose will is really free?” And, they will add, “Does not God’s power transcend human freedom?”
The Gospel of John does not provide a detailed answer to why Virginia Techs take place. It merely says that people prefer darkness to light. From almost the very beginning the world has been marred by wickedness, and it is not about to stop.
The gospel then goes to some lengths to show God acting to relieve the suffering. He sends His son to teach the world better ways than the narrow self-interests most people pursue. He also gives His son on the cross, at least as cruel a death as that rendered by an automatic pistol. He does this, first, to show solidarity with the suffering around the world and through the ages. But much more significantly, His gift provides us the opportunity to stand with him in death so that we may experience the resurrection which inevitably follows.
Homilette for Monday, April 16, 2007
Monday, II Easter
(John 3)
Raymond used to drink a lot. We would say he had a drinking problem. He might have even called himself an alcoholic bound to nowhere except, perhaps, an early death. One day, however, he decided to stop drinking. The decision came in the midst of prayer and was supported by prayer. Since that moment Raymond has never been drunk again. In fact, he never takes a drink although he will sip the Precious Blood when it is offered at Mass.
Such a radical turnabout seems to be what Jesus has in mind when he speaks of being born again. He does not intend to say that one has merely to submit to the Baptism ritual to see the kingdom of God. No, he seems to have a more fundamental experience in mind. He seems to mean undergoing a transformation so that the person lives in a completely new way. Like Raymond those who experience such a change know that it is primarily not their doing. Rather it is a work of grace. Many in the early Church evidently were so tranformed as they were preparing for Baptism.
What about those baptized at a tender age? People like most of us – are we squatters in the kingdom of God? Perhaps. We can test ourselves. Do we see radical change for the better in ourselves? Do we find ourselves becoming more God-like? If we liked to talk about ourselves, are we now ready to listen to others? If we used to look at others as objects of sexual fancy, are we now seeing them as God’s children? Such transformation is what water and the Spirit is all about.
(John 3)
Raymond used to drink a lot. We would say he had a drinking problem. He might have even called himself an alcoholic bound to nowhere except, perhaps, an early death. One day, however, he decided to stop drinking. The decision came in the midst of prayer and was supported by prayer. Since that moment Raymond has never been drunk again. In fact, he never takes a drink although he will sip the Precious Blood when it is offered at Mass.
Such a radical turnabout seems to be what Jesus has in mind when he speaks of being born again. He does not intend to say that one has merely to submit to the Baptism ritual to see the kingdom of God. No, he seems to have a more fundamental experience in mind. He seems to mean undergoing a transformation so that the person lives in a completely new way. Like Raymond those who experience such a change know that it is primarily not their doing. Rather it is a work of grace. Many in the early Church evidently were so tranformed as they were preparing for Baptism.
What about those baptized at a tender age? People like most of us – are we squatters in the kingdom of God? Perhaps. We can test ourselves. Do we see radical change for the better in ourselves? Do we find ourselves becoming more God-like? If we liked to talk about ourselves, are we now ready to listen to others? If we used to look at others as objects of sexual fancy, are we now seeing them as God’s children? Such transformation is what water and the Spirit is all about.
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