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.”

God welcomes us into the family of love – Luke 2:41-52, 1 John 3:1-2

Holy Family, Year C; Notre Dame (University Village)

We’ve just heard tell of a perfectly loving family.  But that perfectly loving family isn’t the one our feast celebrates today: the one perfectly loving family is not Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but God.  By which I mean: God the Father, and Jesus the Son.  God is family, and by that I don’t mean that God really likes families (though he does), or God is close to us like a familial relative (though he is), I mean it as literally as we can mean anything about God: God is a family, the one perfectly loving family.  The relationship of love between God the Father and Jesus the Son is the love from which all other love is spun.  It’s a love between father and son that drove everything that Jesus did; and everything that Jesus did serves to invite us into that love and empower us to respond in love.  It’s why had to be in his father’s house, about his father’s business.  It’s why Jesus prayed so much.  It’s the love that gave Jesus the strength and the trust to be able to offer everything for us.  It’s the love that drew Jesus up to return to his father after his resurrection, to continue to show us what love looks like, and that led him to send us the Spirit that we might live in that love.

God clothes us with joy – Zeph 3:14-18a, Phil 4:4-7

Advent, Yr C, Week 3; Notre Dame (FOG Graduate Student chapel)

We all like to be praised.  As humans, we have widely varying tastes and preferences in oh-so-many things, but being praised is almost universally liked, I think.  Sometimes being praised is utilitarian, a good grade, or letter of recommendation, or positive feedback from a reviewer: there, sometimes, the pleasure at the praise is really pleasure at what we can use the praise to do.  But there’s a deeper type of pleasure at being praised, a holier one, even, and that’s when we know that the praise comes from someone being really overjoyed because of us, and we rejoice in response not because the person’s important, but because we love them, and stimulating joy in someone we love is wonderful. 

The Word of God comes to us – Luke 3:1-6, Bar 5:1-9

Advent, Yr C, Wk 2; Notre Dame (Walsh Hall)

We love stories about journeys.  Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, the Odyssey, The Earthsea books, the Wizard of Oz, Watership Down.  Some people even claim that every great story is at its heart the story of a journey (they’re wrong, but lots of people say it anyway…).  Whether they’re hobbits, women, girls, men or rabbits, we do love stories about plucky, beyond-all-odds heroes traversing through all kinds of sticky situations, normally to make it home, a better person for it.  I have a friend who just put in an audition tape for American Ninja Warrior, and it’s amazing how many people (including me) will spend hours of our lives watching people attempt that same short but grueling journey, in the hope that one of them might make it to the top of Mount Midoriyama.  We love these stories, I think, because we love to imagine ourselves on a journey, to narrativize our lives like that.  In fact, it’s a classic spiritual practice.  You can read books about the soul’s journey to God by saints like St. Bonaventure, and more recent spiritual writers, including our own Fr. John Dunne, a Holy Cross priest who taught at Notre Dame for 55 years.