God makes the deserted bloom – Matt 11:2-11, Isa 35:1-6a, 10

Third Sunday of Advent, Year A; Holy Infant Church

“Here is your God.”  Behold, your God.  Those are the words we heard from the book of Isaiah.  It goes on: He comes with vindication, with divine recompense, he comes to save you.  It goes on, talking of all the miraculous healing that will happen, all great cause for rejoicing on this Gaudete Sunday, the Sunday of rejoicing.  But, the future, what will happen, can distract us, almost water down, the exultant immanence of the Hebrew acclamation:  Hinneh elohekem!  “Here Is your God.”  Not, here’s the spot where he will be, just hang on; certainly not, there’s where he will be, but he’s distant now, so don’t bother Him.  No.  Here is your God.  The cry might go up… “where?”

God makes us kings – Isa 11:1-9

2nd Sunday of Advent, Year A; Holy Infant parish

We use cute kittens for praising friends.  Ask anyone who got confirmed at Holy Cross grade school in South Bend, IN in 2014 or ’15 what the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are, and right before they tell you wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, fear of the Lord, they’ll probably think to themselves: we use cute kittens for praising friends.  It taught the confirmation class to our 7^th and 8^th graders, and made up that mnemonic (where the first letter of each word matches) to make sure they remember the seven gifts, because I knew that our bishop would base his confirmation homily around asking them what the seven gifts were and preaching about each one.  Only on one quiz did I ever get told that the seven gives were wisdom, understanding, counsel, kittens, fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord.

God enlivens our run to Him – Adv I collect

Advent I, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,

The resolve to run forth to meet your Christ

With righteous deeds at his coming,

So that, gathered at his right hand,

They may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

One God, for ever and ever.

Advent is for waiting – if people know one thing about Advent, it’s probably that.  We’re waiting for Christmas, which isn’t very long to wait and we’re waiting for Christ to come again, without knowing how long that will be.  Regardless, we’re waiting.  So why did our opening prayer, our collect, talk about running?  “Grant us the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ.”  That’s what we prayed at the start of Mass.  Running: it’s a fascinating and compelling characterization of what Christian waiting looks like.

God overlooks our sins that He might dwell with us – Luke 19:1-10, Wis 11:22-12:2

Ordinary Time, Year C, 31st Sunday; Holy Infant.

When you look at Zacchaeus, what do you see?  We know what the crowd saw.  They saw a short man, collaborating with Roman occupiers, a man they disdained and feared in equal measure.  They saw someone who they presumed was an extortioner, and I’m sure tale upon tale of how wicked this bogeyman was spread, picking up embellishments like ships collecting barnacles.  We don’t know whether this was true.  We don’t know whether his extravagant gift to the poor was a one-off, spontaneous gesture occasioned by meeting Jesus, or his habitual practice that he just now makes public.  We don’t know if he extorted anything, or if his promise to pay back four times as much was a cheap one to make because he had only ever made the costly decision to never act dishonestly.  All we know was that he wanted to see Jesus, and he would go to any lengths necessary to make that happen.  This well-to-do well-feared man, would publically humiliate himself by shimmying up a tree: All to see Jesus.

God accompanies us and wills us to see that – Luke 18:9-14; 2 Tim 4:6-8 16-18

Year C, 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Infant

Thank God I’m not like that Pharisee!  Oh… wait… oops.  It’s hard not to find some of him in each of us.  You see, that Pharisee was a good person, a generous person.  He fasted twice a week, much more often than was required.  He ignored all the various exemptions concerning what kinds of income you didn’t have to pay tithes on and tithed on his total income.  He fasted, gave alms and here he was in the Temple to pray – a model believer!  Well, almost.  Because he goes through the motions of addressing a prayer to God – beginning it “O God, I thank you…” – but our narrator, Jesus, tells us what’s really going on: “he spoke this prayer to himself.”  And while he says “thank you,” his prayer merely lists his good deeds (genuine good deeds!) and the misdeeds of other mortals: entirely lacking is any mention of God’s deeds.  All the good that God has inspired him to do… all that should be a living icon reminding him of the goodness of God, of God’s gracious acts of creation, of deliverance from captivity and exile, of God’s care and providence, God’s mercy.  But no, this Pharisee takes his own good deeds and instead of letting them serve as an icon of God’s goodness, he makes them into an idol.  And the people around him, who should be objects of his love, in whom he should be able to see the original spark on the image of God, in whom he should be able to see God acting, from whom he should be willing to learn; he simply reduces them to flat images of what not to do.

God answers prayer humanely – Luke 18:1-8, Exod 17:8-13

29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C; Holy Infant; Mass with baptism.

Whenever I come to baptize, my heart goes back to the first parish I served as a deacon, then priest, where my first baptisms and so many more were.  There, like here, the font was near the door, a beautiful reminder that it is by baptism that we enter the church, like a door, and it was under a beautiful stained glass window of Jesus inviting children to come to him, to be embraced and to be blessed.  Most of our baptisms there were outside of Mass so I was able to use that gospel each time.  I would point them to the window, that I hope you can paint in your minds, and proclaim that this moment too, this beautiful sacramental moment of baptism, performs exactly what happened in that window (and so much more besides): a child is brought to Jesus for embrace, for blessing.

God heals the fear that makes us shun – Luke 17:11-19, 2 Tim 2:8-13

28th Sunday in OT, Year C; Holy Infant parish.

I think the worst thing we could ever teach someone is that they should keep their distance from Jesus.  Yet, this is what these ten lepers were taught.  Not specifically from Jesus, of course, they’d been taught to keep their distance from everyone who didn’t share their disease.  When the first signs of leprosy were noticed on someone’s skin, there would be a funeral style liturgy in which the victim would be mourned as if dead when cast out of the community, shunned, told to remain perpetually separate, to cry out to warn people not to come near them.  They were taught that their skin was so dreadful, literally, something that people dreaded so, that they must keep away, because they were dangerous, because they were feared.  They were taught to hate their own skin, taught that the only useful thing they could do with their lives was to help others avoid them.

God invites us to participate in resurrection, if we dare to notice crosses – Luke 16:19-31, Amos 6:1a, 4-7

26th Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Infant parish.

To preach on this text, I need to be honest about where I stand, honest that when I hear this parable, I don’t feel like Lazarus.  In fact, I’m frightened that I act like the rich man, and I’m begging God to help me grow into Christ’s likeness, who crossed from heaven to earth to show God’s love to sinners like you and me who rejected him.  So, I’m going to preach to scratch my own itch.  But, I say all this recognizing that some people hearing this might feel like Lazarus.  Pope Francis once said that every verse of scripture is gift before it is demand, and if you do feel like Lazarus in this story, then maybe you don’t need the demand, at least not yet.  Maybe you just need to assurance of choirs of angels celebrating your entry into heaven and embrace not just of Abraham but of Jesus.  Be assured, and now let me talk a little to those who are frightened by this parable.

God looks upon our faith – Luke 16:1-13, Amos 8:4-7

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C; Holy Infant parish

This is my first time preaching the Sunday morning Masses here at Holy Infant and, while I’ve celebrated with the daily Mass crowd and Vigil Mass crowd, I was still really hoping that for my first time preaching for this gathered assembly, I’d get a nice easy Gospel passage.  I guess God and the lectionary had other ideas!  But, while this is a very strange parable, I want to start with what’s clear about it.

Jesus provides better than what we’re grasping – Luke 14:25-33

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C -- Holy Infant parish.

When it’s your first time preaching a Sunday Mass in a new parish, you kind of hope for an easy gospel passage to preach on.  But, I guess God has a different plan in mind, furnishing this teaching about hating family and carrying instruments of torture around with us.  God actually has a track record on waving this passage in my face on occasions when I’d most like to avoid it.  As you might recall, the Sunday readings cycle round on a three-year rotation, and the Sunday corresponding to this one three years ago, September 8^th actually, I remember the date well, because it was the occasion of my ordination to the diaconate.  Just what I wanted!  When I was welcoming my family to the seminary to celebrate with me, they’d be subjected to a gospel claiming I was meant to hate them!

Jesus leads us through turmoil into peace – Heb 12:1-14, Luke 12:49-53

Ordinary Time, Year C, Week 20; WNDU TV Mass (South Bend)

There is a marked home field advantage in the Olympics.  Host nations on average win 20 more medals than they did in the summer games previous to the ones on their soil, and 10 more gold.  You might wonder where this advantage comes from.  Some of it is probably not being wearied by travel, competing in the climate you train in, the kind of advantages that accrue from being at ‘home.’  But, I’m sure a big part of it too is the fans, the people cheering you on.

God gives life to the lost – Luke 12:32-40, Heb 11:8-12

19th Sunday, Ordinary Time, Year C; St. Pius parish (South Bend).

God keeps calling us to be on the move, to be a pilgrim people, to walk away from what binds us, even if it’s temporarily comfortable, and walk into the freedom of self-gift, even though that’s hard, walk to the place where death will give way to life.

God makes us shameless praiser-askers – Luke 11:1-13, Col 2:12-14

Ordinary Time, Yr C, Week 17; St. Thomas More parish (Knebworth, England)

With this being an Olympic year, we’ll soon get to watch some amazing feats of athleticism.  We’ll see women and men who truly have been born with great gifts from God – their genetics, their opportunities, the people who support them – and who also have worked incredibly hard to hone their skills.  None of what we’ll see is their own un-aided un-God-given achievement, but none of it comes naturally either, not without being taught and trained.  In our gospel, we see that the disciples recognize that this is true too in their life of prayer.  Just like any athletic skill, or musical, or literary, the disciples know that they need to be taught, and they ask Jesus, “Teach us how to pray.”

Jesus lifts us out of the ditch – Luke 10:26-37

Ordinary Time, Yr C, 15th Sunday; St. Mary's

“Who is my neighbor?”  I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve heard that question often enough that I’m not sure it no longer stirs in my heart what needs to be stirred.  When I realized this week that we could just as grammatically render it “Who is near me?” it started to do a little more work.  Then, I thought that right now might not be the time for grammatical fastidiousness, and I might need the freshness of this: “Whose lives matter?”  “Who is my neighbor…? Who is near me…? Whose lives matter?”

Jesus prays that we might know him – Luke 9:18-24, Zech 12:10-13:1

Sunday, Ordinary Time, Yr C, Wk 12; Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame)

Have you ever wondered what Jesus was praying about when he was praying alone?  It’s an important truth of our faith that Jesus truly was praying, not just play-acting or talking to himself.  The Son can truly pray to the Father, because while both are fully God, our God is one God in three persons.  The “spirit of petition” that the prophet Zechariah promised would be poured out on all people truly dwelled with Jesus, and flowed from him to us, enlivening us to pray just as he prayed. But what was he praying?  I’d always written off my curiosity about these moments as something to get past, maybe as a prompt for me to pray for greater humility (not everything is mine to know), but praying with and studying this passage from Luke’s gospel over the past week it occurred to me that while the text doesn’t quite come out and tell us, it lets us make more than a guess as to at least part of what Jesus might have been praying about: Jesus prayed that Peter might know who he is.

Upcoming conference presentation

If you liking reading things here, and you happen to be in or around San Antonio in November, you might also enjoy hearing me speak in a more academic conference.  Program book link (search on my last name; I don't know how to link to the results of a search).

Healthcare and Disability in the Ancient World
11/19/2016 1:00 PM

“A death like his:” Saul’s privation and restoration of sight as formation for the Christian super-prophet in Acts 9

(abstract below the cut)

God frees us for extravagant love – Luke 7:36-50, 2 Sam 12:7-13, Gal 2:16-21

Ordinary Time C, Wk 11; Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame)

We grow up learning how to make deals.  We know that if we eat all of our Brussel sprouts, we might get ice cream, if we share we might get more toys, or (somewhat paradoxically) if we tidy our rooms, we might not get sent to them so soon.  Deals certainly have their place, but I hope they stay in their place.  A lot of us here are students and/or teachers, many of you here for summer school.  The fast pace of summer instruction can lead to the temptation to reduce education to a series of deals: the teacher agrees to impart certain information, the student agrees to regurgitate it, the teacher agrees to give a grade based on how accurately that regurgitation occurs.  Deals have their place, but I hope we’re all open to something more than that happening in our classrooms: something more relational, more transformative, more loving.  And I certainly hope we’re open to that in our walk with God.

God brings us to share the glory of love – John 16:12-15, Prov 8:22-31, Rom 5:1-15 (Trinity)

Trinity Sunday, Year C -- Notre Dame (Basilica of the Sacred Heart)

Before I entered seminary, I was a math teacher, which makes me wonder if that’s why they asked me to preach here on Trinity Sunday.  But, no amount of mathematical trickery can magically make ‘sense’ of the 3-in-1, because the Trinity is not a puzzle to be solved, but someone to adore.  We’re not here to ‘make sense’ of the Trinity, because sense is fundamentally the wrong thing to try to make out of Love.  Love is the thing to make out of Love: wonder, love, awe, praise and adoration.  When we confess God as Trinity, we are confessing the simple, delightful, death-dying truth that God is Love, and to do so grateful to theologians who have loved this God, drawn close to this God in prayer, and given us words to help us approach the awesome mystery.

Jesus dwells with us ever more openly – John 14:23-29, Rev 21:10-14, 22-23

Easter, Year C, Week 6; FWSB TV Mass for the homebound and incarcerated.

I used to be really jealous of the people who had known Jesus during his earthly ministry; the zeroth generation of disciples, if you like.  The fact that they got to walk and talk with Jesus, to converse, to eat, to hunger… to interact with him in the same way as we interact when presented with any other regular living human.  But, as time has gone on, I’ve become more and more appreciative of living in this time, the time of the first, second, third… whatever number generation we’re on of being disciples, the time of the church. 

Jesus renews our love – John 121:31-35, Rev 21:1-5a

5th Sunday of Easter, Yr C; St. Mary's Convent / ND (Farley).

“Don’t let them in, don’t let them see / Be the good girl you always have to be. // Conceal, don’t feel, put on a show / Make one wrong move and everyone will know.”  So sings Queen Elsa, hiding behind her locked bedroom door out of fear, early on in Disney’s Frozen.  Scared of opening the door, of ungloving a hand; scared of loving.  And she’s already virtuous enough that she’s not scared of getting hurt, but she’s scared of hurting others, so she maintains her voluntary imprisonment as long as she can.

Jesus gives us the gift of being givers – John 21:1-14, Rev 5:11-14

Easter, Week 3 (Year C); Notre Dame (Keenan / Howard)

When I was in my first semester of the MDiv degree here at Notre Dame, I was rather surprised to get an email from one of our professors asking, “Can I keep a copy of this paper?”  It was a class in which we had to write a bunch of short papers over the semester, and after turning in about half of them, she would contact me to ask if she could keep a copy.  At first I thought it was a little strange, mainly because I didn’t really see why she felt the need to ask, but also because these weren’t papers that had really contained a lot of original research on my part, I’m sure I hadn’t told her something she didn’t already know in them, they were really just processing and reflecting on the readings that she had already given us.  But, then I remembered she was a scholar and a teacher.  She had chosen to dedicate her life to theological scholarship because she loved to read good theological writing, and apparently, I was producing something at least approaching that.  And, as a teacher, she needed to teach me that I was doing that, and asking permission to keep a copy of something she had a right to anyway, something that I could only have produced with her help and at her command; that was how she went about that.  In her deigning to receive my work as a gift, she nourished my scholarly zeal.  In deigning to receive my work as a gift, she gave me a gift in addition to the teaching she had already given; she gave me the gift of being a giver.

Jesus refuses goodbye – John 20:1-9

Easter Sunday; Notre Dame (Basilica of the Sacred Heart).  Video.

I don’t really like goodbyes.  I’m generally one of those people who tends to quietly slip away from a party, rather than going round bidding farewell to everyone I know.  And with casual acquaintances, or good friends we’ll only briefly be separated from, that’s OK (even if it verges on unconscionable for some of my more extroverted friends).  But the dearer the friend and the more remote the absence or uncertain the possibility of renewed contact, the more important the goodbye is.  And the harder it is.  So, I really don’t like those goodbyes, and still less final goodbyes, as much as I still cling to them as precious.

Jesus constantly desires closeness – Luke 22:14-23:56

Palm Sunday (Year C); Notre Dame (Lewis Hall)

How might we have responded to Jesus’ Passion at the time?  How are we responding now?  How are we responding to Christ’s suffering lived out in the suffering of our sisters and brothers and of ourselves?  How are we responding to Christ’s sacrifice, re-presented on every altar at every Mass, that we might be fed?

God sends us to the goal of glory – John 8:1-11, Isa 43:16-21, Phil 3:8-14

Lent, Yr C, Wk 5; Basilica of the Sacred Heart (ND).

The saddest thing about this gospel is that they walked away, these people with stones in their hands.  And there’s pretty stiff competition for the saddest thing about this gospel.  There’s the fact that there were going to stone a woman to death.  There’s their desire to test Jesus.  There’s the possibility that an act of adultery had been occurring, and we have to stand back and also be just as saddened, nay outraged, that we don’t know who consented to what in this encounter.  There is a lot to lament in this Gospel, about this happening retold to us, and about people and events in our lives whose memories it evokes.  But, I still contend that the saddest thing about this gospel is that they walked away, these people with stones in their hands.

God feeds us for joy – Luke 15:1-3. 11-32

Lent, Yr C, Wk 4; Holy Cross House.

Baby flamingoes are born with grey feathers.  They only become pink because their diet is rich in a natural pink dye called canthaxanthin, which is found both in brine shrimp and, somewhat paradoxically in blue-green algae.  Zoo flamingoes used to lose their acquired pinkness until zookeepers realized that they had to provide them with artificial sources of canthaxanthin.  As with flamingoes, so with us: we are what we eat.

God enlivens our vision – Exod 3:1-15, Luke 13:1-9

Lent, Yr C, Wk 3; Notre Dame (Farley Hall)

I wonder how many burning bushes Moses walked past.  We’d all like to think that we’d notice something like that, that it takes no special spiritual gift to notice something, to draw close to it out of curiosity, and then be surprised by God.  But, we walk past burning bushes all the time.  That kind of attentiveness that attends to the world in a sensitive enough manner to notice how God might be calling out to us isn’t something we just have automatically.  It is a gift, but it’s a gift we give thanks for by working to develop it, just like musical talent, or athletic ability.

Jesus’ glorious word sustains us on our walk –Luke 9:28b-36

Lent, Yr C, Wk 2; televised Mass for those unable to attend Mass (Diocese of Fort Wayne - South Bend)

I’m sure we all have moments from our past that we love to revisit in our memories; moments that we would have loved to freeze-frame when they happened, that we long to have been able to package in a way that we could open them up again and again, and let their fragrance revive us from any spiritual drowsiness we find ourselves in.  There are big, obvious moments like a wedding, your first child’s first smile or, for me, my profession of perpetual religious vows, or my ordination; and any number of more unique moments we each cherish.  What’s amazing about those moments though, is that each of them look forward, prepare us for something totally new, something that we could never have begun to embrace without that amazing moment, but we also could never have gotten to if we hadn’t climbed down from the mountain and dared to walk in the plain.

God gives us love – 1 Cor 12:31-13:13

OT Yr C, Wk 4; Notre Dame (Howard Hall)

When the Oscar nominations came out, everyone’s eyes went straight to the best picture, directing, and, most of all, acting nominations.  Will this be Leo’s year?  I’ve got to back the Brit (Eddie Redmayne).  How about Brie Larson, who I thought was great in Room?  Not many people looked to the small print at the bottom of the articles, that told us who got nominated for best sound mixing or best sound editing.  I have to admit: I have no idea what the difference between those two things is.  Can anyone tell me why Bridge of Spies got nominated for sound mixing but not editing?

Jesus frees us for joy –Luke 4:14-21

OT Wk 3, Yr C; Holy Cross House (retirement home for Holy Cross priests and brothers).

“Jesus taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.”  What a wonderful way to start our Ordinary Time walk through the Jesus’ earthly ministry, guided this year by Luke.  We start out hearing of Jesus teaching, to universal praise and acclaim, becoming a revered teacher given an overwhelmingly positive reception.  We know that that’s not going to last.  In fact, by the end of this very chapter, the people who hear him teach react so negatively that the try to push him off a cliff!  When I started praying with this lectionary selection and preparing myself to preach, it seemed a little odd to me that the lectionary really cuts one story in two.  It almost feels like we should have ended with a ‘to be continued’ sign, because the negative reaction that’s soon to come is the reaction to this inaugural Nazareth sermon that we hear.  But, as I sat more and more with the reading, and the lectionary’s choice of how to carve up this pie, I began to see the wisdom.

Jesus expands our joy –John 2:-12, 1 Cor 12:4-11, Isa 62:1-5

OT Wk 2, Yr C; Notre Dame (Farley Hall)

When I was in parish work, our sacristan had to take a couple of months off to recover from surgery, and I thought I’d figured out everything she did each week and either arranged cover or just decided to do it myself.  But, over those couple of months, I gradually realized more and more things that just somehow got magically taken care of when she was around.  During the first week she was gone, one of our parish school kids, a little second grader, came up to me with a panic struck expression: “There is no blessing in the church!”  Somewhat worried about this exile experience she seemed to be having, I tried to figure out what was actually wrong, and eventually figured out that all of the holy water stoups were dry.  Problem fixed.  I wish every spiritual crisis was as easy for me to solve!

Jesus baptizes us – Luke 3:15-16, 21-22, Isa 40:1-11, Titus 2,3 extracts

Baptism of the Lord, Yr C; Notre Dame (Fisher Hall)

Jesus’ baptism is clearly important.  In Luke, it’s our introduction to the adult Jesus, all four of our gospels narrate it, which means it beats out Jesus’ birth by a factor of 2:1 there), it’s important enough to me that I picked an image of it from my first parish to put on the holy card we gave out at my ordination.  Yes, Jesus’ baptism is clearly important.  But, Jesus getting baptized isn’t what struck me as the most important thing in this gospel.  Studying and praying with it over this week, one sentence stuck with me: “He will baptize you.”