Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, bishop and Doctor of the Church

(I Timothy 1:15-17; Luke 6:43-49)

(This homilette is written for the sixtieth anniversary reunion of Fenwick High School, Oak Park, Illinois).

George Weigel is a American Catholic intellectual who has written a commentary on Church affairs for almost 50 years.  His most recent column resonated with some of my concerns about social issues.  He had just returned from a summer teaching in Europe and could not believe the amount of hot air created by the Cracker Barrell logo issue.  For any of us who may not be aware of it, Cracker Barrel briefly removed from its logo the image of a white man and was criticized for caving in to wokery.  Weigel called the issue “absurd” and listed multiple reasons.

Weigel wrote that the Ukraine is being brutalized by Russia and looks to the U.S. for support while the U.S. obsesses over the Cracker Barrel logo.  Additionally, the Scholastic Aptitude Test designers have decided that “It’s asking too much of a generation whose attention spans have been formed by, X, Facebook, and Instagram to comprehend a 750 word text … and now ask wannabe college students to demonstrate mastery of 25-150 texts.” Meanwhile Americans obsess over the Cracker Barrel logo.  The Centers for Disease Control reports that one in four American teenagers self-identify as “LGBTQ” while the American Pediatric Association protests over legal restraints on the mutilation of adolescent and Americans are up in arms over the Cracker Barrel logo.  Weigel lists a number of other follies prominent today, but one more will do for here. Texas and California are taking gerrymandering to a new extreme of injustice that only undermines confidence in democracy and people fixate on the Cracker Barrel logo.

In today’s gospel Jesus says that “a good tree does not bear rotten fruit.”  We 1965 graduates of Fenwick have been nurtured by our parents, our teachers, and many other influencers to be good trees.  We must continue to bear good fruit by passing on the wisdom we have gained to the present generation of young men and women.  To be sure, we at 78 years of age are not the primary shapers of their lives.  But we can and should model and support just ways of living in the world.  Every year it’s more obvious that our society has become more narcissistic, more intolerant, and more careless.  We should do what we can to return the world to its proper orbit of peace with justice.  We have much to be grateful for.  Let us express that gratitude to both God and neighbor by coaching young men and women to reconsider what Christ has taught in the gospel.  We might also mention what he said about his judgment for eternity.

Sunday, September 14, 2025

 

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

(Numbers 21:4-9; Philippians 2:6-11; John 3:13-17)

There is a charming legend about the discovery of the cross of Christ by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. Unfortunately, there is no historical data to support this legend. It doesn't really matter, however, because today we don't honor so much Jesus’ cross as Jesus, the crucified one. Today we celebrate how the Son of God humbled himself twice, as the second reading tells us, for our salvation. He did so first when he took on mortal flesh and second when he suffered the horrible death of crucifixion.

It is notable that in our celebration we do not refer to the testimonies of the crucifixion in the four Gospels. Rather, we read a short passage near the beginning of the Gospel according to John and an obscure episode in the Book of Numbers. The Gospel in particular indicates the significance of this monumental event of history.

In the Gospel, Jesus is in dialogue with Nicodemus, a Pharisee and Jewish leader.  He represents the Pharisaic Judaism that remained after the destruction of the Temple in the year seventy. Of course, Jesus speaks for the Christians who were being persecuted at that time. This dialogue or debate shows how Christianity is rooted in Judaism, although it has emerged as superior to the old faith.

Jesus cites the passage in Numbers where the Israelites wander through the desert, tired and distressed. Instead of being grateful to God for having rescued them from slavery, they complain about the hardships they endure: the forty years they have traveled while God formed them as His holy people and the provision of manna, the "wretched food" in the reading, which has sustained them. To correct their indignation, God sends them venomous serpents that kill those they bite. When the people repent of their ingratitude, God sends them relief. Out of love for His people, He commands Moses to make a bronze serpent and set it up on a pole. So those who are bitten and see him continue to live.

Now Jesus predicts his own lifting up on the cross as similar to the bronze serpent lifted up on the pole. He says that anyone who sees his lifting up will possess eternal life. We should note the difference between the two lifting ups. In the wilderness, with the lifting up of the bronze serpent, the Israelites receive only an extension of mortal life. With Jesus' being lifted up, those who observe him will receive eternal life—that is, life with God without end.

Jesus has two referents in mind for his lifting up. First, he refers to his crucifixion. Second, he refers to his resurrection from the dead. Both events in the Gospel according to John are moments of glory. Of course, his resurrection represents his victory over death, but how is his crucifixion glorious? Unlike the other evangelists, John reports how the crucified Jesus is surrounded by his family and friends, mocked by no one, and utters efficacious pronouncements like, "Woman, here is your son..." This glorious death is confirmed when Nicodemus himself, who debates with Jesus in this gospel, brings enough spices to bury him like a pharaoh.

Perhaps the most glorious aspect of Jesus' being lifted up on the cross is the universality of the offer it makes. It extends not only to Jews, not only to the pious or the wealthy, but to the entire world. It is true that those who observe him being lifted up must accept that this act of humiliation shows Jesus as their Savior. Nevertheless, everyone has the possibility of salvation because, as the gospel puts it, "God so loved the world."

Friday, September 12, 2025

 

Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

(I Timothy 1:1-2.12-14; Luke 6:39-42)

C.S. Lewis was baptized as an infant, but at sixteen lost his faith.  He could not believe that a good God would create such a messy world.  However, has he matured, he encountered several highly intelligent men who made him question his atheism.  Feeling pursued by a relentless savior, Lewis one night went down on his knees and prayed.  He then became one of the most effective Christian apologists of the twentieth century.  His story parallels that of St. Paul in today’s first reading.

Although many biblical experts maintain that someone else wrote the First Letter to Timothy for Paul, the letter itself assumes Paul’s voice.  Paul writes that he persecuted the Church as an evidently young and definitely arrogant man.  He shows gratitude for having been rescued from his unbelief and for coming to know Christ. 

Many people today have similar experiences to those of St. Paul and C.S. Lewis.  They have been convinced by the sheer goodness of Christ and clarity of the gospel that egotism and hedonism are not valid ways of being in the world.  They encourage the rest of us when we grow lax in believing.

Thursday, September 11, 2025

 

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

(Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 6:27-38)

Jesus calls his disciples in today’s gospel to a discipline that would make a marine despair.  They are to turn the cheek when struck and offer their tunic when someone has already taken their cloak.  This agenda of nonresistance will not appear to many as virtuous.  Quite the opposite, the one who accepts it will appear sheepish.

Such a stance is redeemed by two conscious choices.  First, disciples must put on, as the first reading says, “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”  Each of these virtues serves in the rejection of the impulse to defend oneself and one’s belongings.  The second choice is to pray for the grace to overcome the desire for vindication.  One needs the grace of the Spirit to resist the impulse of “fight or flight.”  Demonstrating these compassion and godliness, Christians will be recognized not as cowards but as promoters of a new way of being in the world – the way of divine love.

Today many of us remember the horrific attacks on America perpetrated by Muslim terrorists twenty-four years ago.  The President of the United States at the time, George W. Bush, a practicing Christian, ordered a reprisal against the terrorists’ operating facilities in Afghanistan.  We should ask ourselves whether he violated Jesus mandate to his disciples.  The answer must be “no.”  The President has the responsibility of defending the people.  Still there were limits to the reprisal.  Nevertheless, the counterattacks did not exonerate American Christians from praying for the conversion of their Muslim terrorist enemies.

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

 Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

 (Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 6:20-26)

“There is a difference between the rich and the poor,” the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald told his friend Ernest Hemmingway.  “Yes,” replied the other with characteristic terseness, “money.”  As attractive as Hemmingway’s truism sounds, Fitzgerald makes a better argument.  The poor are generally less educated and more likely victims of various social pathologies.  Also, the poor have God on their side as Jesus makes clear in the gospel today.

Preachers have long noted that the beatitudes in Luke have none of the spiritualizing tendencies that are seen in Matthew.  In Luke it is “the poor” who are blessed, not “the poor in spirit.”  Likewise, those who are simply “hungry” in Luke are being filled, not those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”  The needy can now rejoice because Jesus has come to champion their cause.  In contrast, those who know abundance are wise to better beware because Jesus will not allow them much slack at judgment.

Are we to be condemned then if we own a house and a car?  And if we sleep in the night shelter, are we assured of Paradise?  Such conjectures are inevitably made and should be determinedly resisted.  Jesus makes a priority of the poor but sends his Spirit on all of us to take up his causes.  The poor also have to respond to his grace with care for others.  The rich can be saved by showing compassion on the needy.