Father Chris's Homilies

Now that we are beyond the Christmas season, we are returning to normal. In our first reading, Isaiah reminds us that we are servants. In this new year of grace, we are called to be servants. We are learning about humility; being humble means thinking less of myself and more of others. Is this what it means to be a servant? We hear the words of Isaiah as we begin the annual week of Christian unity. It is wonderful that men and women from different denominations can come together in prayer. This afternoon many will gather to remember the life and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was a true servant to the mission of justice for all God’s people. Dr. King was a Christian who acted as a servant to the kingdom of God. Dr. King was a dreamer who shared his dream with the world. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . . I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today . . . This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning. “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. Being a servant of the gospel means being a dreamer who works to make the dream a reality. With our brothers and sisters of many faiths, we are servants of the kingdom of God. Like John the Baptist, we prepare the way for the coming of God’s kingdom. Each one of us, have been baptized and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. With the spirit to help us we are servants of the kingdom of God.

 From Pope Leo’s Christmas homily: “For millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky, giving names to the silent stars, and seeing images therein. In their imaginative yearning, they tried to read the future in the heavens, seeking on high for a truth that was absent below amidst their homes. Yet, as if grasping in the dark, they remained lost, confounded by their own oracles. On this night, however, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Isaiah 9:2). Behold the star that astonishes the world, a spark newly lit and blazing with life: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Into time and space — in our midst — comes the One without whom we would not exist. He who gives his life for us lives among us, illuminating the night with his light of salvation. There is no darkness that this star does not illumine, for by its light all humanity beholds the dawn of a new and eternal life.” Stars are what this season of Christmas is all about. We look at the night sky and see the stars that remind us of the nativity of our Lord. At night God comes to speak to us in dreams. Sometimes the dreams tell what to do as they did for Joseph and the Magi. The star in today’s celebration is a star that points out the birth of the Christ child. Each child is born with a divine spark. Each human person has the dignity of being a child of God. I am reminded of the words of Leonard Bernstein. He calls his poem Greeting : “When a boy is born, the world is born again and takes its first breath with him. When a girl is born the world stops turning round and keeps a moment hushed wonder. Every time a child is born, for the space of that brief instant, the world is pure." This time of year, we celebrate the birth of our God. The stars on our trees remind us of our connection with our God. The words of Frost are appropriate here: O Star (the fairest one in sight), We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud— It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud. But to be wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’ But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend. It gives us strangely little aid, But does tell something in the end. And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid. Like Mary, we ponder all these things in our heart. As we begin this new year, we are to be like the star who ponders all things. Sometimes it will mean to burn, it will not always be clear, but with the heart of Christ to guide us we will make sense of it. On this New Year's Day, we look to the stars and ponder what this Christmas 2025 has meant to us.

St. John Lateran is the cathedral of Rome. The church was built on land belonging to the Lateran family, thus the name St. John Lateran. Connected to the church is the baptistry, a large building used for baptisms. This is the oldest baptistry in Rome. The building dates to the days of Emperor Constantine and includes image of the battle of Milvin Bridge (312) when Constantine had a vision of the cross and later declared Christianity the official religion of the empire. In our first reading on this feast, we hear of the water flowing in the temple. Water is used in the sacrament of baptism. The baptistry at John Lateran is the oldest of its kind and speaks to us of the sacrament. Water speaks of the two elements of the sacrament of baptism, death and life. Those who are baptized die to their old way of life and participate in the resurrection of our Lord as they experience new life in this sacrament. In the waters of baptism, we are cleansed from the stain of original sin, and we are initiated into the body of Christ. The initiation into the body of Christ is the reason we baptize at the weekend liturgy. The person is being brought in as a member of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ gathers on the weekends at Mass. In the early church there were adults who were baptized. They would spend a period journeying with a sponsor and learning about the faith and at the Easter Vigil the bishop would come (in the early days there were no priests, just bishops), the community would gather, and the bishop would perform the rites of initiation, baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. The OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) recaptures this practice of the early church. Over the years it has become common to baptize infants. Canon Law, the law of the church, considers a child of 6 years to be an adult and thus is invited to enter the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. Baptism is the first and most important sacrament. Each time we enter a church we bless ourselves with holy water to recall our baptism. In so many of our sacraments the church takes simple things and uses them to speak about aspects of our faith. Water has become a sign of the death of Christ and a sign of his resurrection. We use oil, a simple element, for anointing and healing in the sacrament of Baptism. The lit candle speaks of the light of Christ brought to the person in the sacrament and finally the cross is made on the mouth and ears of the person for hearing and speaking the word of God. Other sacraments use simple things to speak about a greater reality. We use bread and wine in the Mass; a simple gold ring is exchanged to speak about the love of God that unites a man and wife. Today we celebrate the dedication of an important space in our world church. The Church of St. John Lateran and its baptistry have allowed many to touch into the love our God for many years. We are thankful for this holy place.

Solemnity of Peter and Paul June 29, 2025 Peter and Paul are called the saints of Rome. Partly this is because, both died in the city. You may visit their burial places. The grave of St Peter is under the Basilica bearing his name and St. Paul is buried under the church of St. Paul outside the walls. (Being a Roman citizen Paul was buried outside the walls of Rome, while Peter was killed and buried in the city of Rome.) More about the churches later. Paul and Peter couldn’t be more different. It is said “God draws straight with crooked lines”. Why did God choose these men? A good question. It has been said “God doesn’t call the qualified, God qualifies the called.” Paul was a well-educated, Pharisee. An official of the temple. Paul spent his early career persecuting the followers of Jesus, until he met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Peter was a simple fisherman. He often said the wrong things and at times had flashes of insight, as in today’s gospel. Peter spent time with Jesus and denied knowing Jesus the night before his passion and death. Later Peter was asked 3 times “do you love me” by Jesus. Peter was the apostles to the Jews, while Paul was the apostle to the gentiles (the non-Jews). The Basilica of St. Peter is probably the most famous church in the city of Rome. For years it was thought that the church held the remains of St. Peter. This was confirmed in the 1940s when excavations took place to find more room to bury popes in the crypt of the building. Workers found and ancient cemetery under the church. Today we can take the tour, often given by seminarians from the North American College Seminary. Be sure to reserve the tour before you arrive in Rome. The tours are limited. At the end of the tour, you will come to the Marble box with the bones of St Peter in it. When the bones were tested, they were found to belong to a man from the first century. After Constantine made Catholicism the official faith of the republic, He constructed a simple church over the cemetery. Later it was added to and today it is the large church we know of as St Peter’s Basilica. You may visit the Constantine chapel in the crypt of the church to see where the first church was located. When I was on my sabbatical in Rome in 2008, I invited my family to visit me and I arranged to offer mass in the Clemintine chapel. After mass I noticed that one of the metal doors on the wall was open. We crawled in and went behind the altar to tough the marble box where the bones of St Peter were placed. What a thrill to be so close to the great saint’s remains. To visit the tomb of St Paul you need to travel outside of Rome to the church of St Paul outside the walls, most of the tour buses do not go here, so be carful which tour bus you take. The church is next to a monastery with a nice cloister garden. On the base of the dome are faces of the popes. Years ago, excavations took place, and the bones of St Paul were found in the base of the church. Today we honor the great saints of the early church. It is due to the preaching of St Paul that we the gentiles, non-Jews are here. A few months ago the successor to St. Peter was a man from our nation, Pope Leo the XIV. Let us give thanks for these great man and these great saints.

Corpus Christi June 22, 2025 Today we celebrate the feast of the body and blood of Christ, the eucharist. The second Vatican council reminds us that the eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. All we are, has its source in this celebration. At this celebration we are given the most ancient text about the last supper, the institution of the Eucharist. In Paul’s letter to the community of Corinth he tells us what took place at the night before Jesus suffered and died. In this account Jesus says to the disciple “do this in remembrance of me.” This remembrance is not simply calling to mind something that took place over 2000 years ago. The remembrance is about living the life Jesus has asked us to live. We live his example, Eucharist for us is about who we are and how we live. Each week we come to be fed with the word of God and the gift of the eucharist. This Sharing in the one bread and one cup becomes a moment of transformation. We are changed by this celebration. We go forth to live what we have experienced. In the gospel today, we hear of the feeding of the 5000 with the five loaves and 2 fishes, Barbara Reed askes an important question in this month’s issue of Give us this day, “Did Jesus actually multiply the loaves and fishes. Or was it a miracle in which everyone was prompted to share with others what they had brought? A better question is: How do we replicate the giving of our whole selves, body, mind and spirit, to the One who is the source of all nourishment so that we may be broken up in love for the life of the world?” What we do on the weekend does not end at the doors of the church building. We go forth to live the Eucharist. This is what deacon Myers meant when he wrote his book “Living the real presence”. After we come forward to receive communion we have a moment of silent prayer as we contemplate how this celebration will remain with us for the days to come. Then we stand for the post communion prayer, our home work. The prayer tells us how we live what we have received. This is why we stay after communion. We stay to pray as the body of Christ and to hear what we are do next. Here is the post communion prayer for this mass: Grant, O Lord, we pray that we may delight for all eternity in that share in your divine life, which is foreshadowed in the present age by our reception of your precious body and blood Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Each time we come forward to receive the Eucharist we come as a community. We come as the body of Christ. The communion reception is a sign of unity. We come standing to receive. We are united in voice as we sing the communion hymn. We receive communion. We do not grab it we open our hands to receive. We are all receivers of this gift. All that is given to us if a gift and we receive this gift which is freely given by our God and then we go forward to give this gift all who we meet. The miracle of each mass is the gathering of the body of Christ and what we receive we freely give to others. The mass goes on and on throughout our days for our whole life.

Pentecost June 8, 2025 On this Pentecost Sunday we read how the spirit came upon the disciples: When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. This scene recalls the creation in the first chapter of Genesis: In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters. The spirit comes into our lives as a strong creating wind. The spirit is all about creating something new. The world and the disciples were changed by the spirit. Yet when the resurrected Christ appeared to his disciples we appeared with the visible signs of his crucifixion. His hands and side still bore the marks of his crucifixion. We are given an answer to this question in our second reading from I Corinthians: The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. If only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. We suffer with Christ and in doing so we are glorified with him. At the end of the gospel Jesus gives the disciples the mission to forgive sins and retain sins. Forgiveness is painful. We give forgiveness before the hurt of the offense has gone away, it may never go away. The spirit allows us to forgive others and in doing so we experience the glory of our God. Like Christ we may retain the signs of our suffering, but we go forward to forgive and to experience glory. Like the spirit in Genesis, the resurrected Christ breathed on them giving them the spirit. The spirit comes again as breath of God. On this Pentecost day we go forward to feel the breath of the spirit in our lives and we take that spirit to offer forgiveness to others and in doing so we experience the glory of our God.

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5 th Sunday of Lent C April 6, 2025 Often someone will approach me and ask if I can do x y or z on such and such a date. I am not always good and knowing my schedule in the future, so I will say, “send me the dates and I will get back to you.” Sometimes they will send me the dates, sometime not. If I say yes, I may find I have a conflict. This is a stalling tactic giving me time to discern how to respond. This is what Jesus does as he writes on the ground. He knows the Scribes and Pharisees are using the woman to trap him, so he bends down to scribble in the dust to have time to answer them. When he does answer them, his statement is not about the woman’s actions, but about the motives of the accusers. He knows they hope to trap him. If he suggests the woman be released, he has broken the Mosaic law, if he suggests she be stoned he will be in trouble with the Romans. So, he focuses on the motive and state of the accusers. In our first reading we are reminded that God is doing something new. Jesus does something new. He doesn’t focus on what the law says, but he focuses on what is in the heart of the accusers. Mosaic law says that those caught in Adultery, both the man and the woman should be killed. Here we only have the woman. We are told she was caught in the act, but where is the man? For the season of Lent, we have been piling stones in our desert. These stones are the Character defects we wish to reform in this season. They are not for killing others but given to God to use to build us into a new creation. Jesus allows the woman to become a new creation. He refuses to condemn her, He encourages her to sin no more and to go free from the accusations of the temple officials. Have you been like the woman accused by others? How did you experience the forgiveness of your God? When have you been like a Scribe or Pharisee pointing the accusatory finger at another? Cast aside the stones you have wanted to hurl at the other and look inside your heart and see how God’s forgiveness has made you a new creation.