Christ leads us through suffering to eternal life – Matt 16:21-27, Jer 20:7-9, Rom 12:1-2

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

One year at Notre Dame’s baccalaureate Mass, I ended up being the person tasked with purifying the vessels. As I was purifying the main, celebrant's chalice, I noticed whose it was.  It was Fr. Sorin’s chalice, the chalice of the priest who my community’s founder had sent on the arduous trip across the ocean from France to the mission territory of Indiana to found a school.  It wasn’t the chalice he’d received at his ordination, but one he’d been given on one of his ordination anniversaries by a benefactor.  The precious metal alone must have been worth a pretty penny, the craftsmanship and artistry more, and the history behind it probably made it the most expensive thing I’d ever held, and certainly the most expensive thing I’d ever swilled water around in and drunk out of.  The most expensive thing I’d ever held, but not the most valuable: for a little while before I’d embraced fellow Christians, fellow humans in the sign of peace, and a shortly after that I’d held the body of my Lord briefly in my hand, before consuming it.  “What could we give in exchange for our life, or the life of anyone?”  Jesus asks.  Nothing, we could give nothing so valuable as a life.  What would he give for our life?  Everything.  He would give his clothing, his blood, his body, his very life, to lead us into eternal life.

Christ gives himself that death may be conquered – Isa 22:19-23, Matt 16:13-20

Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross parish.

Have any of you spent the last fifteen minutes wondering what Shebna did?  Shebna, who Isaiah talked about in the first reading, in not so glowing terms.  Shebna, who loses his role as master of the royal palace, a kind of chief steward or major domo for the king, and instead of severance pay gets thrust from his office, pulled down from his station, and stripped of his garb of honor, which gets handed over to Eliakim, his successor.  What did he do to deserve that?  Well, our reading began at chapter 22, verse 19.  If we’d have started at verse 15, we’d have heard all about it (and we’d also have heard rather more gruesome curses against Shebna than the ones we did!). 

God’s table of plenty heals with but a crumb – Matt 15:21-28, Isa 56:1, 6-7, Rom 11

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time; Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

In Dante’s comedy, after traveling through hell and purgatory, our hero eventually finds himself being taken on a tour through heaven.  Heaven, for him, is ordered, there’s lower-heaven and various grades of upper-heaven, each granting its residents an even more intense closeness to God from the last.  But, in a sense, the order is irrelevant, for all the inhabitants of heaven are incomparably blessed.  Dante starts his tour at the Moon, the lowest level of heaven.  Upon its pock-marked surface the first person he meets is Piccarda.  It takes him a while to recognize her, as her happiness has rendered her more beautiful than she ever appeared during her life on earth.  She is completely aware that there are higher levels of heaven above her, but she suffers not a jot for it.  She is happy.  Not just content, she lives a life of bliss.  She has been purified of all jealousy and wants nothing but what she has, for she only desires that God’s will be done.

Christ’s resurrection ripples raise us up

Solemnity of the Assumption (Mass during the Day); Holy Cross - St. Stanislaus.

Some things can’t help but spread.  Laughter would be one, hiccups definitely another.  True goodness is the same way, and that’s true in any field: the greatest musician isn’t the diva or divo who tuts about their accompanist’s tempo, but someone who makes everyone around them play better when they pick up their instruments; just as a great athlete doesn’t hog the ball, but raises the play of the whole team.  Virtue’s the same way too: the virtuous person is contagious with goodness and walks around lighting fires of zeal and coating everything with a soothing balm of hope and patience.  And if that’s what virtue does, then that’s what resurrection does too.  Resurrection is the fruit of the greatness of Christ’s love, it’s what happens when a human life was lived so perfectly, so holily, so virtuously that someone dared to love us enough not just to die for us, but loved us so much that not even death, death at our hands, could keep him from being with us.  The fiery furnace of Christ’s love erupts in resurrection.  And it spreads.

God’s power saves us when we realize we are overcome – Matt 14:22-33

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross parish.

It was the first time he’d left them.  Our gospel says that Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead without them.  He had crowds to send forth, crowds that he’d just miraculously fed (this gospel picks up right where we left off last week). And, then, he needed some prayer time.  So, he goes up the mountain.  He mourns his friend and forerunner John the Baptist, whose death at Herod’s hands he’d just heard of.  Maybe he begins to fear for his own death which may come the same way.  He needs to experience anew and afresh the closeness of his father, to re-member whose Son he is, to re-find the strength to be God-with-us to this hungry world.  A world that suddenly looks more dangerous with John’s death.  A world that’s about to get a lot stormier.

God transforms all that we have into gift – Matt 14:13-21 (bilingüe)

Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross parish and St. Adalbert's parish (in Spanish, see below English homily)

I was very pleased to find recently a website of “51 insanely easy ideas to transformyour everyday objects,” which includes turning funnels into candle holders, hangers into magazine racks and bread tags into loose key labels.  Even I can manage these, despite the fact that I’ve never been much good at DIY or craft activities, although I have great admiration for those who are; for people who can take lifeless supplies and create something useful or beautiful out of them.  I’m even more impressed by our art teacher Kim McClean at Holy Cross grade school, who doesn’t just create art but does it through creating artists out of children.  And it was in teaching that I discovered the kind of transformations that I can help effect: turning a mass of information and technique into something learnable, helping a student move from “I can’t” through “I currently struggle with” through “I kind of sometimes almost can” to “I’m good at.”  We all have some awareness both of what it’s like to transform things, and of the kind of transformations we struggle to effect.  We know how badly the world, and our neighborhood, needs people who can transform conflict into peace with justice; peace-makers.