Catholic Faith and Reflections

Here is my homily for this weekend. God bless each of you!

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord

February1/2, 2014

Mal 3: 1-4; Heb 2: 14-18; Lk 2: 22-40

Do you remember the biblical account of the Passover in the Old Testament book of Exodus? The Hebrews had been slaves in Egypt for about 400 years, and Moses was trying to free them from Pharaoh. One night, God’s angel went throughout Egypt, striking down every first born son in the land except for those of the Hebrews. The Hebrews had been told by God to splash lamb’s blood on the doorposts of their homes and to stay in those homes that night. Those who were in those marked homes were spared that death; God “passed over” them. The next morning, Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, out of slavery. God led them to freedom.

 The Jewish people for all generations after the Passover remembered what God had done, not with fear, but with a profound sense of gratitude for the freedom given to them. God asked them to show their gratitude by offering to Him all their first born sons. Yes, each was to be given back to Him, redeemed, by presenting him in the Temple and offering a sheep or goat (if the family were wealthy) or a couple of pigeons (if the family were poor). This is what we hear about in today’s Gospel. Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, fulfilling the Law by offering Him back to His Father.

When we hear about the Passover, God striking down all the first born sons in Egypt but sparing the sons of the Hebrews, what are we left to think about who God is in our lives? Who is God and how do I think of Him? What do I imagine Him to be like? Is He a God of fear, or is He someone else?

For so many of us, I suspect, God is out there, someone with whom we have to contend in our lives. He is someone we bump up against in life. He is someone who always seems to be restricting our freedom. We all have thought of God in that way. He is a God who says, “No.” We can’t do what we want because God says no. God is sort of a fussy, competitive being who will restrict and punish us if we mess up. So we end up dealing with Him when we have to, contend with Him when we want our way or want to do something that pushes the limit a bit.

If we think of God in these ways, what is the result? Well, we end up challenging God; we run the risk of losing our freedom and our happiness; we rebel against Him and we get lost.

Who then is God if He is not that? The Bible is filled with stories that tell us, filled with the prophets who explained Him to us, and Jesus Christ reveals to us the face of God the Father. He shows us who God is.

Yes, God is a Person who is completely just and so there will be consequences we will have to face if we sin and rebel against Him. But that is not the whole story. He is more. God is a Person who gives us a solid grounding. He is a God who over and over again frees us from whatever may enslave us. He is a God who gives meaning to our lives. He is a God to whom we are naturally drawn in our quest for Truth and freedom. He is not a God who competes with our freedom, but a God who gives it. He is a God who loves us so much He wants us to be completely fulfilled and eternally happy. He is a God who gives us strength to endure the Cross in our lives. He is a God whose commandments do not restrict us, but direct us toward real and true freedom.

God never enslaves us. God frees us. God leads us. God loves us. As we heard in today’s second reading from Hebrews, He is a God who has destroyed the power of death, destroyed Satan’s power over us and freed all of us who had been subject to the slavery of sin and He did this by becoming like us in every way but sin and then suffered and died and rose again.

God is just and there will be unavoidable consequences for our misdeeds and our sins if we do not repent, but He is more. He is a God who frees us and gives our entire lives meaning.

Mary and Joseph knew God in this way. They knew God to be, not a God of death and slavery but a God of life and freedom. Mary presented her divine son in the Temple, in gratitude and faith for great gift of freedom from slavery to sin. Let us present ourselves in this Temple, this Church this day, to the same God, for He has freed us from our old way of life, a life of sin, and has given us the gift of new birth and the freedom of His sons and daughters.

Here is my homily for this weekend. May God bless all of you!

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, Cycle A, 2014

Isaiah 42: 1-4, 6-7; Acts 10:34-38; Matthew 3: 13-17

January 11/12, 2014

 What would God say if the heavens were opened and his voice could be heard talking about you? “This is my beloved son/daughter, in whom I am well-pleased!”? Or are those words reserved for Jesus His Son? Could they be said of you also?

Can you in any way identify with Jesus in today’s Gospel, who is revealed to us as the second Person of the Holy Trinity?

Why did Jesus submit to a baptism?

He didn’t need to be baptized since he was God’s beloved Son, blameless and sinless, but he wanted to be baptized in order to be in complete solidarity with us, completely identified with us and make it possible for us to be completely identified with him.

So, what we hear today is not only a revelation to us about the Blessed Trinity, but also a revelation about who we are created to become. Both God’s glory and our dignity are revealed in the Baptism of the Lord.

Jesus became one with us in all things but sin and in doing so, he sanctified us and made us a holy people. Jesus makes holy everything and everyone that he touches, everything and everyone that he approaches, everything and everyone that he takes to himself. He made us holy by taking on our flesh. He made us holy by accepting a human baptism. He made baptism holy by his baptism. He made the water used in baptism holy by being immersed in it.

Jesus wished to be baptized, to take on our need for baptism so that we might be clothed in His divine dignity.

We all must imitate Jesus in our lives. In some way we have to imitate Jesus’ baptism. How can we do that in real life?

Obviously, by being baptized ourselves, and making sure our children are baptized. Baptism is the sacrament that cleanses us of all our sin, makes us children of God, makes us members of the Church, gives us sanctifying grace and pours out into our lives the Holy Spirit. Yes this is the most fundamental and important way to imitate Jesus in his baptism.

But imitating Jesus in His baptism is more than a once in a lifetime imitation, so how can we do that? Let me tell you the parable.

Parable of the Coatless Gambler.

There is a stretch of road called connecting two states. Nearly 15 years ago, a man was driving a very old pickup truck out of one state and toward the border of the other. It was a very cold day, being toward the end of December, and he was thinking he was grateful for the well-functioning heater in that old pickup as he was rounding a corner. Unexpectedly, to his right he caught sight of a pedestrian walking toward the state border, shuffling quickly in the cold. He had no coat, no gloves and no hat. The driver pulled over at the nearest side road and turned around to wait for the man coming toward him. When he did, the driver rolled down the window (the blast of cold air startled him) and he called out to the walker, “You need a ride?” “Yes!” was the answer, so the man hopped in the passenger side and they sped off. “Why are you walking in the cold with no coat, gloves or hat?” the driver asked. “I was at the casino down south of here all night. My family left me there. I am walking home” the man answered. The driver thought to himself that the man must have gambled away everything he had and his family was upset enough with him to leave him stranded. He said, “Well, I can take you across the river a few miles. You can warm up a bit on the way.” The drive was short, but long enough for the man to be warmed. He still had about a 20 mile walk if he were to make it home. When the driver eventually pulled over, the man go out and thanked the driver, who thought, “I can’t let that guy go out in the cold without a coat.” So he took off the coat he had on and handed it to the man, saying, “Take it. I have another.” The last thing the driver of that old truck remembered was the man putting on that coat and zipping it up. Since that time, the driver has wondered if maybe Jesus had appeared to him in the disguise of a coatless gambler.

Friends, this is a parable of fraternal love, solidarity with the poor, and an act of charity without judgment of others. It is a true story that show us one way we can imitate what Jesus did for us at his Baptism.

To give away your coat is a way of identifying yourself with another person, of putting aside what is rightfully yours so that someone else may be raised up in dignity and given glory. To give a coat to a person in need is to strip ourselves of a sign of our dignity so someone else might be clothed in it.

Jesus takes off his divine coat today in the Gospel and hands it to all of us to wear, because we are far too poor to even begin to buy one for ourselves. The glory that is rightfully Jesus’ and his alone as God the Son, which we hear about in the Baptism of the Lord, he confers on us in our baptism. He gives us his coat, his dignity.

My friends, when we give relinquish our dignity, our “coats,” so a poor man or woman can be raised up in dignity, the heavens do open (although we may not hear the voice) and God says of us, “You are my beloved son or daughter in whom I am well-pleased!”