Homily—Feast of Saint Joseph

 It was on this day one dozen years ago that our beloved Pope Francis inaugurated his papal ministry. In the course of the ceremony he received the Fisherman's Ring as one of the symbols of his office, the Petrine Ministry.  This ring is like a wedding ring that symbolically binds him as Christ's Vicar to his beloved bride, the Catholic Church. I think of what is said to husbands in the Epistle to the Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over to her.”  

       We celebrate today the Solemn Feast of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary.  With a grace filled love for her and obedience to God, Joseph handed himself over to her.  Mary was, indeed, the sole member of the Church of Jesus Christ.  In handing himself to her as husband he became, to use the word of Pope Francis in his inaugural sermon, he became the “Protector” of the seedling Church that was Mary with Jesus within her.  With explicit faith, hope and love, Joseph protected and guarded Mary and her child from manic Emperors, petty kings and religious fanatics. With great faith in God's will, he adopted her son Jesus into his royal line of  King David knowing that the authorities wanted her son killed because of this (perhaps all of them to share this fate).  Truely, faith hope and love were active along with his works, and by his works this trinity of virtues were perfected in him. Saint Joseph's being named Patron of the Universal Church is rooted in all this. He is ever our Protector. Finally, Joseph became the celibate lifetime companion of Mary and she became his--but it is a lifetime companionship that never ended because it blossomed into eternal life.

       I first noticed this concept “lifetime companionship” to describe marriage in the film of Karol Wojtyla's 1960 mystical play “The Jeweler's Shop.”  It is a play about a marriage rooted in love contrasted with another rooted in materialism, and then about their children.  In the scene of the proposal in the good marriage, the man asks the woman he loves, “Will you be my lifetime companion?” She responds with joyful reciprocity. I have been thinking lately that in this concept “lifetime companionship” is a clue to a way we can experience with Saint Joseph the great mystery of his being the husband of the Ever Virgin Mary. I, for one, would be repulsed by a spirituality where I would think of myself as “husband” of Mary. However, the notion of being the lifetime companion of Mary is very attractive to me spiritually.

       The word “companion” has an incredibly beautiful etymology. It comes from the Latin word “com,” meaning “together with,” and the Latin word “panis,” meaning “bread.”  Literally, says the Oxford Dictionary, it means “one who breaks bread with another.”  So, in the Jeweler's Shop drama,  the good man is asking the woman, “Will you break and share bread together with me all the days of our lives?”  In the case of Joseph, husband of Mary, not only will he be breaking bread with her all the days of his life, but also with the very One who will eventually reveal Himself (perhaps even to St. Joseph) as the Living Bread come done from heaven, as the Bread of Eternal Life, their son Jesus.  Yes, ultimately, Jesus is the Living Bread that Joseph, husband of Mary, shared with her all the days of his life on earth and now shares in a transcendent manner for all eternity.

        St. Bernard, in the 45^th Sermon on the Song of Songs, recommends to all of us who feel discouragement in the spiritual life, yet wish to be saints, to become  a lifetime companion to Mary—he uses the word “friend.”  In Cistercian theological anthropology, a “friend” who is not one forever was never a friend. Becoming a friend to Mary, therefore, means becoming a lifetime companion in word and deed.  Deeds suggested by Pope Francis 12 years ago are all encompassing: (quote)“to protect the whole of creation, to protect each person, especially the poorest and to protect ourselves.” (unquote) Being near Mary enables us to hear the voice of the Bridegroom Jesus calling us to live a holy life and so to have a place at the wedding feast of the Lamb in heaven, where we will recline with Mary and Joseph and Jesus and all the blessed who are invited—yes, all of us are invited.  In just a few minutes we will all even now be invited to the foretaste of this heavenly banquet in the sacred banquet of the Eucharist. Breaking the Living Bread of the Eucharist together empowers us to a true friendship, a true companionship with all, one that is rooted in God,.  St. Joseph, the husband of Mary, shared the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ, with his lifetime companion, Mary.  They share the Living Bread of Life with us. In that we all can rejoice as on a wedding day.  Happy “wedding day” anniversary, Pope Francis! We are all praying for you.

       

       

Tenderness

And what is tenderness? It is the love that comes close and becomes real. It is a movement that starts from our heart and reaches the eyes, the ears and the hands. Tenderness means to use our eyes to see the other, our ears to hear the other, to listen to the children, the poor, those who are afraid of the future. A child's love for mom and dad grows through their touch, their gaze, their voice, their tenderness. I like when I hear parents talk to their babies, adapting to the little child, sharing the same level of communication. This is tenderness: being on the same level as the other…

POPE FRANCIS Video Message, April 26, 2017 

Being Ourselves

That we are poor sinners doesn't mean we should feel guilty for existing, as many people may unconsciously do. God's look gives us full rights to be ourselves, with our limitations and deficiencies. It gives us the "right to make mistakes," and delivers us, so to speak, from the imprisoning sense that we ought to be something other than we are. That feeling does not originate in God's will but in our damaged psyches.

JACQUES PHILIPPE Interior Freedom

The Ladder of Love

Love, therefore, is the origin and source of all good things; it is a most excellent defense, the road that leads to heaven. Whoever walks in love can neither stray nor be afraid. Love guides, love protects, love leads to the end. Christ our Lord, brethren, set up for us this ladder of love, and by it every Christian can climb to heaven. You must, therefore, keep a firm hold on love, you must show it to one another, and by progress in it climb up to heaven.

ST. FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE

The Absence of Us

The real problem in prayer is not the absence of God but the absence of us. It's not that God isn't there; it’s (nine times out of ten) that we are not. We are all over the place, entertaining memories, fantasies, anxieties. God is simply there in unending patience, saying to us, “So when are you actually going to arrive? When are you going to sit and listen, to stop roaming about, and be present?”

ROWAN WILLIAMS Being Disciples: Essentials of the Christian Life

Homily—First Sunday of Lent

Lent, the springtime of the Church, situates us between two gardens-- the garden of Eden, that lush middle Eastern paradise where the first Adam lost his innocence and the garden of the Resurrection on Easter morning where Jesus the new Adam wounded and resurrected will walk in peace restoring our lost innocence. In between we spend forty days with him in the desert.

Named by the Father, Beloved Son at his baptism, Jesus is now led by the Spirit into the desert to be tested by Satan. The ache of hunger, the lure of cheap, empty success, the enticement of having all nations under his control by misuse of his power. These temptations are all about the nature of Jesus’ vocation and his ministry, and the Evil One’s determination to have Jesus deny his identity as Beloved Son and to doubt the mission he has received from the Father. As if to say: “Just forget this Incarnation thing. Why bother? It will be too messy. Why trouble yourself? Just be God, you know, heavenly, far away. I’ll take care of things down here. Leave it to me. But now, turn stones into bread. That’ll be easy for you. You’re God after all. Be super-Jesus. Fly. Fall off the cliff and have angels come and rescue you. You can do it in a flash. Why pretend? Just show your sensational power; show us who you really are.” But worse and most insidious of all is that middle temptation: “Deny your true identity as obedient Son of the Father and worship me, and I’ll share all my worldly power with you. Isn’t that all you really want?” Thank God, Jesus will have none of it. He stands his ground, well aware of Satan’s lies; he holds on to the truth of who he is and why he’s come. 

My sisters and brothers, the incarnation drives Satan crazy, this mingling of divinity and humanity. For the Accuser knows it is his undoing - God and our flesh forever one. Jesus absolutely refuses to deny his identity as fully human, fully divine, for his humanity is the sacrament of his divinity; the full, real expression of God’s love for us. Satan wants him to deny the self-forgetful Love that he enfleshes. But Jesus wants so much to be like us - in all that is ordinary, obscure and laborious. And so this morning the battle lines are set. Two rival kingdoms. Power and prestige vs compassion and humble service. Satan’s counter kingdom vs the kingdom of God. 

As his ministry begins, Jesus makes clear his determination to deliver us from the Enemy, who always wants to lead us away from God. In obedience to the Father, he comes to heal, to feed and to wash our feet. His power revealed in weakness, humble self-offering and compassionate love. Satan wants him to forget this Love that will lead to his excruciating self-emptying even unto death, death on a cross. True enough, Jesus will struggle in Gethsemane, even sweating blood out of fear, but he will continue to surrender to the Father’s will for him. The cross will be his final answer to Satan. For on the cross God will let Himself be murdered for our freedom from all accusations against us, and death will die in Him. Jesus’ victory over sin and death, will be accomplished through his exquisite suffering in quiet trust and obedience to the Father. Satan suspects that something’s afoot, and he’s trying his damnedest to fight back, and he won’t ever give up. Luke assures us that having been dismissed by the Lord, Satan departed from him only “for a time.” The battle this morning is only the first movement in the drama of our redemption. 

Jesus’ temptation by the Accuser was to be other than he is, God with us, God for us, God’s most beloved Son. Our temptations are perhaps a zillion variations on a similar theme- to be less than who we are-  dearly beloved children of God. Like Jesus we live with beasts, our own inner demons. We are day in day out persecuted, beguiled and tempted but never, never abandoned for we carry about in ourselves the dying of Jesus so that his risen self may also be revealed in us also. This is our hard and beautiful destiny, our baptismal truth. We are in Christ. And this morning he teaches us how to embrace our identity with him as God’s beloved children and to hold fast to our call to serve God and not self. He who is our refuge in all temptations is tempted today and is victorious to reveal to us our power as baptized members of His Body. 

Perhaps all this talk of the evil spirit makes us uncomfortable, too spooky, superstitious. But doesn’t our experience tell us that he is very real? For if we desire God, deeply desire Christ Jesus, desire to belong to him, to choose his way, then simple logic will tell us that the unclean spirit, the evil one, will always want the opposite; want to confuse us and draw us away from Jesus. But rest assured Jesus’ power in us through the Spirit is utterly opposed to the power of the demonic; and his self-offering on the cross will mark its ultimate defeat.

We have great power in Christ Jesus, more power than perhaps we realize, to make the grace-filled choice and dismiss the unclean spirit; a power given to us at our baptism, when faith in Christ Jesus was entrusted to us. But it is a power we need to keep asserting, that’s why we will renew our baptismal promises at the Easter Vigil. “Do you refuse to be mastered by sin? I do. Do you reject the glamor of evil? I do. Do you reject Satan? I do.” Jesus is crazy in love with our humanity; longing always to rescue us and bring us home to his Father. And so once again this morning, he will mingle his flesh with our flesh in the Holy Communion we are about to receive.

Contemplation

Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with certitude that goes beyond reason and beyond simple faith… It is a more profound depth of faith, a knowledge too deep to be grasped in images, in words, or even in clear concepts.

THOMAS MERTON New Seeds of Contemplation

Homily—Ash Wednesday

“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. …” This is the summons from the prophet Joel that opens our Lenten season: “Return!” I couldn’t help but hear resonances from St. Bernard’s sermon 74 which we read in our Experientia program, only with an unexpected twist. In that sermon it was the soul crying out to her beloved to return. As St. Bernard put it, “When the Word leaves the soul, the enduring desire for him becomes a single, sustained cry of the soul, a single, sustained call of “Return” until he come.” The Word inspires this cry in the soul. But today, we have a reversal. It is not the soul, crying out for her Bridegroom. It is the Lord crying out to our souls and to the entire Church to return with her whole heart. 

The entire Church needs to hear this call to return. Holy as she is, she has strayed on all too many occasions. At times she comes with all devotion to sit at the Lord’s feet and listen to his word; she comes to share in his table and receive the bread of life; she comes to care for the least of his sick and rejected brethren. But at other times she has gone away, committing scandals, faltering in her faith, her hope, and her love—indifferent to the face of her beloved. Think of some of the times you have received the grace of God in vain. But even then, the Lord does not cease to cry out, “Return to me with your whole heart…” His desire is to leave behind a blessing, for when sin increases, his grace abounds all the more. Let us confess this mercy. Let us rend our hearts in thanksgiving. “Return” is a good word for the Lenten journey we are beginning. 

But return from where? Not from some physical distance but from the land of unlikeness. The visits of the Word are intended to re-form us in his likeness so that we might see him as he is. When we go away, it is because we are attracted to unlikeness. Looking at the truth becomes too embarrassing for us. It is easier to set our minds on things below rather than on things above. But how do we return? The prophet Joel gives us a hint: “Return to me with your whole heart…” Wholeness of heart is the grace of this season, bringing us back from a divided heart. Ask yourself this: Where is my treasure? A time of quiet prayer will tell us where our heart is. A period of sacred reading will poke a hole in our pretensions. We monks, especially, who have been called to fasting, to weeping, and to mourning on behalf of ourselves and others, how often have we strayed from our purpose? “Return to me that I may return to you” says the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, the prophet Joel concludes with these words today: “Then the LORD was stirred to concern for his land and took pity on his people.” This is our hope. These ashes are a sign of our return. “For gracious and merciful is (the LORD), slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment.”

Self-Seeking

Saint Benedict is almost ruthless on the question of self seeking—self-will. What he is aiming at is to eradicate from our lives—to save us from ourselves—those forms of self-seeking and assertiveness which lead us into misery and constitute a barrier between ourselves and God. There is nothing so subtle, so pervasive, as the enthronement of “self” at the expense of others and of God.

CARDINAL BASIL HUME, OSB The Intentional Life

The Holy Name of Jesus

Through persistence in the Jesus prayer the intellect obtains a state of sweetness and peace…

The more the rain falls on the Earth, the softer it makes it; similarly, the more we call upon Christ’s Holy Name, the greater the rejoicing and exaltation it brings to the earth of our heart…

The sun rising over the Earth creates the daylight; and the vulnerable and Holy Name of the Lord Jesus, shining continually in the mind, gives birth to countless thoughts radiant as the sun.

The Philokalia, Vol. 1