St. Thomas the Apostle Parish

Homily for Good Friday

A few years ago, a woman was standing outside a church in New York City, hesitating about whether to go inside. Her name was Elaine Pagels, and she was a brilliant historian at Princeton University. Although her specialty was the history of ancient Christianity, it had been years since she herself had gone to church.

Now she was in a desperate frame of mind. Her young son lay in a hospital a few blocks away, just diagnosed with an incurable disease. As she listened to the music drift out of the church and heard the liturgy begin, she found herself drawn in. Writing about this moment in her book Beyond Belief, Pagels said that she was looking for a place to take her fears and grief. Inside the church, she thought, were people who knew “how to deal with death.”

Is that right? Are Christians people who know how to deal with death? Not in the sense that we have knockdown answers to the questions and the terrors that it brings. When the diagnosis comes back with our name on it when brutal injustice is done to us or our loved ones, our world is shattered like anyone else’s.

What we have, instead of answers, is Jesus Christ. In Him, God was pleased to dwell, and in Him, God Himself entered into the fear and the grief, the questions and the terrors of this life.

This is the amazing, fearful, and saving story that is our Gospel today. Fearful, for this reason: The anointed one of God, God’s beloved Son, did not escape suffering or death, did not escape injustice. As Isaiah says, He was “afflicted,” “pierced,” and “crushed.”

But this fearful story is the saving Word to us because of who Christ was and is. Because it was God, the Creator of the universe, who entered completely into this man’s journey toward death, entered even into the silence of the tomb, then our journey down that same road has to be seen in a new way. Our journey to Good Friday, and through all the Good Friday experiences along the way, is not a journey away from God or a journey away from life but part of the mysterious journey back to God.

This is why Jesus can say on the Cross, in His final moment, “It is finished,” and mean by that not “It is over” but “It is accomplished.” What has been accomplished? The fragile gift of life has been handed back to God.

The other Gospel accounts tell us that Jesus used His moments on the Cross to offer forgiveness to one of the men being executed beside Him and to pray for those who were putting Him to death. The Gospel of John, though, reports that after saying, “It is finished,” Jesus “gave up His spirit.” The Greek words for “gave up His spirit” are sometimes translated as “He delivered His spirit” or “He handed over” His spirit. That reading would be consistent with what Jesus is doing in the Gospel of John. He is trustingly handing His life over—not to Pilate or to Caesar but back to God.

Jesus hands His life back to God in a particular way: by first handing it on to others. In the last moments on the Cross, He hands Mary, His mother, and one of the disciples over to each other, creating a new family. He takes their grief and despair and turns it into the occasion for new relationships and new responsibilities.

This act of handing our life back to God is not something we do only at the end of life. It is in the nature of everyday existence. We are always expending ourselves, exerting ourselves. The question is whether we are exerting ourselves only to preserve our life and shore up what we have and the illusions of our immortality. Or, trusting that God is with us in this fleeting life, are we handing on life to others?  

The One who went to the Cross, who embraces our life from womb to tomb, calls us to follow Him into the dark uncertainties of this world. In fellowship with Jesus Christ, we can live in a way that hands life back to God by handing it on to others. And then we wait.+

Homily for Holy Thursday

In our Gospel reading, we witness the scene of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. There is an incident from this scene that we don’t see in our reading today but it is provided for us in Luke’s Gospel and I think most of us are very familiar with it. In the midst of the incredible things that are happening in the Upper Room, some of the disciples begin to participate in a petty – and even childish – argument as to who it is that is greatest among them, and the argument is rather heated.

One has to wonder what Jesus’ inner reaction was to this completely meaningless question of His disciples. Did He shake his head? Did He roll his eyes? Did He bite His tongue? Did He weep or did He laugh because He saw the humor of it? What He did do was to figure that the nonsense of the disciples would give Him a way to teach them. He got up and picked up a towel and wrapped it around His waist. Then He took a pitcher and basin of water and began to wash His disciples’ feet.

As we know, Peter protested. This was because Peter, being the leader, saw the implications; he knew the same would be expected of him. He reacted much the same way we would react when someone of great importance would do something like that. We would shrink away from it. We know that we are supposed to be humble before God but it is difficult to see our God being humble before us.

This is difficult for us to take for two reasons. First, because we are faced with the fact that God did humble Himself for our sakes. God did this for each one of us. Second, because along with this act of humility, God gave us a command. We are given the command to serve and to break bread and, therefore, to reveal the presence of Christ. This is an awesome responsibility; this is an awesome call. Every time we gather to break the One Bread together and to share the One Chalice, the command is there.

This, very simply, is what our Eucharist, — our Mass— is all about: the presence of the Almighty in basic bread and the call to be bread to others. To break open the Word of Scripture, to consecrate bread and wine and so to bring Christ among us, both of these, become our comfort and our challenge.

This is what we celebrate on Holy Thursday: The gift of God who gives His Flesh and Blood and, with no apology, gives us the command to do the same.+

Homily for Wednesday of Holy Week

The early Church was very aware that Jesus was betrayed by one of His closest associates. Although this was a very uncomfortable truth for the early Church, there was no attempt to gloss over the disturbing truth that, in the words of today’s Gospel, Jesus was betrayed by someone who dipped his hand into the dish with Jesus, someone who was an intimate.

The Gospel declares that when Jesus announced that one of those sharing at table with Him would betray Him, everyone present was “greatly distressed.” To be betrayed by someone you trust is very distressing for the one betrayed and for all those associated with Him.

Some of us may have had our trust betrayed by people close to us. We confided in someone and they used that information against us.

This week tells us that such betrayal need not have the last word. God the Father had the last word by raising His Son from the dead. He brought good out of the evil of betrayal and the many other evils that Jesus endured. Divine Providence can also bring good out of the negative things we sometimes have to endure from others. The Passion of Jesus bids us trust that God can work in life-giving ways even after the darkest experiences.+

Homily for Tuesday of Holy Week

What a variety of responses to Jesus in the final days of His life! Judas slinks off into the dark, while the beloved disciple reclined next to Jesus, literally “upon his chest.” In his opening chapter, the evangelist described Jesus as “upon the chest of the Father” (or in the Father’s bosom). This beloved disciple seems to have a similarly close relationship with Jesus. He is an iconic figure, the kind of disciple we are all invited to become.

The beloved disciple is not given a definite name, because we are all invited to put our own name on him. We can identify with him and seek to be like him. We are called to the same relationship with Jesus as the beloved disciple had. That is why Jesus goes on to say, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; remain in my love.” We can share in Our LORD’s special relationship with his Father in heaven.

That is something to ponder, during this Holy Week.+

Homily for Monday of Holy Week

Most of the people who saw Jesus on that final week of His life were hostile to Him. But six days before the feast of Passover, during which Jesus was crucified, He experienced a very great kindness. Not only was He the guest at the table of a family that He loved, one member of that family, Mary, went to great expense to render Him a very thoughtful service. She anointed His feet with very expensive perfume and dried them with her hair. A little later in the same gospel, Jesus will wash the feet of His followers.

Mary, the sister of Lazarus, anticipated that servant-gesture of Jesus Himself. She offered Him a generous, loving service exactly like what Jesus would do for His disciples, and for all of us. Jesus interprets her generous act as preparing Him for His death and burial.

At the beginning of the last week of His life, He welcomed this act of kindness from Mary of Bethany. What she did for Him we are called to do for each other. On our own life journey, we may meet people who make things difficult for us. We will also experience people like Mary who support us on our journey, and, hopefully, we can do for others what Mary did for Jesus, a kind and generous gesture in an often-hostile world.+

Homily for Passion (Palm) Sunday

During the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959, Buddhist monks were the targets of many atrocities and cruelties in order to undermine the deeply-rooted spirituality of Tibetan society. As the Communist forces would invade each village, the monks would flee into the mountains, except in one particular village, where all the monks fled – except one.

On learning that one old monk dared to remain, the enraged Communist commander marched up to the monastery and kicked in the gate. There, in the courtyard, was the one remaining monk, sitting calmly, in prayer.

“Do you know who I am?” the commander screamed. “I am he who can run you through with a sword without batting an eyelash.”

The monk replied, “Do you know who I am? I am he who can let you run me through with a sword without batting an eyelash.”

The attitude of the brave monk mirrors the attitude of Christ in today’s Gospels. Jesus takes on the suffering, the humiliation, the anguish of the Passion fully aware that this will not be the end of the story. Jesus’ certainty of God the Father’s love and faithfulness enables Him to fulfill His role as the Messiah, the Redeemer.

This Holy Week calls us to Easter faith: faith that enables us to take on suffering for the sake of compassion; isolation for the sake of what is right and good; ridicule in the face of injustice and prejudice.+

Homily for Saturday of the 5th Week of Lent

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus' name appears on a hit list: His Gospel of justice and compassion has become too much for the Sanhedrin, who rationalize a "prophecy" to justify Jesus' elimination.

Today's Gospel is relived in the lives of men and women who dare to speak the truth to power. Ridicule, isolation, rejection — even death — can be required of anyone for taking seriously God's call to be His prophets: to proclaim God's compassion, forgiveness, and justice to societies and institutions that are in determined opposition to the very idea of these things.

But the promise of the Resurrection belongs to those who dare to take up the cause of justice and reconciliation in order to proclaim that God has redeemed his people.[1]

 

[1] Cormier, Jay, Connections, Weekdays of Lent, 2007

Homily for Friday of the 5th Week of Lent

Both Jeremiah (from today’s first reading) and Jesus were persecuted because they upset those who placed rituals and rules over people. These people were not bad but were deeply mistaken. They knew their laws, but these had become so rigid and so primary that they no longer expressed God’s mercy.

When applied rigidly, religious rules become like idols. They can be misused as God’s judgment upon every action. Sometimes religious people find false security in fixed rules that are unchangeable.

Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are the love of God and the love of neighbor. It is in following these commandments that we are most like Christ and most assured that our lives are what God created them to be.+

Homily for the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the LORD

Today we celebrate the Annunciation of the LORD – the moment when Mary learned about the LORD’s call to her to be the Mother of His Son.

What a scary time for Mary – to be visited by an angel and to put her reputation, and that of Joseph, in the crosshairs of those who would accuse them of wrongdoing.

Yet, despite her fears, she answered the call of God with all her heart, all her soul, all her mind, and all her body.

Let us pray that the example of Mary’s selfless giving over of her will to the will of God may inspire us to seek to follow God with all our hearts, even when doing so is difficult, unpopular, or puts us at odds with those around us.+

Homily for Wednesday of the 5th Week of Lent

Jesus declares, “the truth will set you free.” A little later in John’s Gospel, He will say of Himself, “I am the truth.”

Jesus is a source of true freedom for His followers. He goes on to declare, “If the Son frees you, then you will be truly free.” It is through staying close to Him that we can enter into what St. Paul calls “the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Our relationship with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that He pours into our hearts, let us live as God wants us to live: in ways that correspond to what is best within us.

True freedom is the freedom to love, to give of ourselves to others as Jesus gave of Himself to us. It is for this freedom we pray during these final weeks of Lent.+