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SUNDAY HOMILY |
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ASCENSION - May 25, 2009
Homily preached by Msgr. Gaalaas In the Creed we recite at every Sunday Mass, right after saying “he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures,” we profess our faith that “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” Jesus’ Ascension into Heaven, like the Resurrection, is an article of our Catholic faith. St. Luke tells us that, 40 days after Easter, Jesus was visibly “lifted up” and that “a cloud took Him from their sight.” His apostles were witnesses to it. What does it mean that Jesus was taken up into Heaven and that He is seated at the right hand of the Father? It means that the divine Son who came down from Heaven has now returned there – “Mission Accomplished!” you could say. He had come down from Heaven to redeem us from sin, and now He returns to Heaven as Victor triumphant. And not only that, but even there – and forever – He is also one of us. He is in Heaven in His human nature, as well as in His divine. He has conquered sin and Satan, and He reigns now supreme (that is to say, “at the right hand of the Father”). He is in Heaven now in His glorified body; and so, in a certain sense, we’re in Heaven, too. Our human nature, which He shares with us, is in Heaven. Our minds and our hearts should be with Him there. “Seek the things that are above, St. Paul said, “where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father.” But do we really seek those things? “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus said. What are the things we really value. Where are our hearts? Are they in Heaven with Jesus? Or has the world got them? Where are we really at? Up in Heaven, or stuck in the mud? Do we see things as Christ sees them, or as the world sees them? We belong to Christ, but have we given ourselves, instead, to the world? Has the world got us wrapped around its little finger, so to say? Are we in its hip pocket? Is our agenda pretty much that of the world, and can our vote be counted on? There are, of course, many things about the world that are good. But there are also elements in the world – dominating and pervasive elements – that are very much opposed to what is good, and are enemies of Christ. How can we know the one from the other? It’s really very simple. It’s when something stands opposed to the values of the Gospel or the teachings of the Church. When people say, it’s okay or even very good to do X, Y, or Z; but X, Y, or Z is clearly opposed to the words of Jesus or the teaching of His Church, you know you’re hearing the voice of a world estranged from God, the world Jesus warned us about. I would bet that all of us could make a long list of such things. And if our lists were very long, that would be a good thing. It would show how spiritually alert we are, and how little, therefore, we’d been taken in by the world. I hope that on everybody’s list the following few items would appear: abortion, divorce, contraception, illicit drugs, sex outside of marriage, shady business practices, religious indifference, and excessive attachment to one’s material possessions. Of course, we could lengthen that list substantially, but we couldn’t subtract a single item from it; and if we would want to, it would be a sure sign that the world has got us in its hooks. On the night before He died, in the presence of His disciples, Our Lord prayed to His heavenly Father, saying: “They do not belong to the world anymore than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth.” If we are His disciples, we don’t belong to the world anymore than Christ did. Christ has conquered the world, and those who belong to Him have conquered it, too. Christ is enthroned now at the right hand of the Father. He is the Lord of the world – and one day He will be its Judge. In the mystery of the Ascension, the Father has put all things under Christ’s feet – even now. May the eyes of our hearts be enlightened, that we may know, ever more clearly, the hope that belongs to His call. (See Ephesians 1:17-23.) FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - May 10, 2009 Homily preached by Msgr. Gaalaas Several days ago, Kelsie Thomas told me she hoped I might say a few words today on the subject of women. She wanted me to share some thoughts of our late Holy Father Pope John Paul II who, in his Letter to Women, spoke of women’s “special genius.” I told her that I would be happy to do this (fools rush in, you know), and that I thought that today, Mother’s Day, would be an especially suitable occasion. Pope John Paul II felt that women have an extremely important contribution to make in forming what he called “a culture of life.” This culture of life he distinguished from what he called “a culture of death.” “Women,” he said, “have the gift to build a more humane society.” This is owing, he said, to their “capacity for the other,” their apparently innate ability to see the other as a person, as someone endowed with inherent dignity. Moreover, women, more than men, seem able to lavish their sympathy on the small and the marginalized – who are precisely the ones that a male-dominated society would push away as unimportant. This natural genius of women is most clearly apparent in those whom we honor today – our mothers. The first recipients, of course, of this immense empathy of women are their own small children; and that’s as it should be. But it can’t stop there, it mustn’t stop there; or the culture of death will never become the culture of life. Perhaps you know that the word “culture” comes from the word “cult,” or worship. The thing we worship, or care most deeply about, has a way of shaping our lives and, so also, then, our way of life – our culture. We see all around us clear signs of a cult of the self, a worship of the self, as opposed to a cult or worship of God. And so it’s no wonder that, as we move away from God, who is the Source of life, we move ever closer to a culture of death. That’s why the Pope said that women, with their genius of selflessness, are providentially endowed with a gift that points us back to God, the Father and Source of all life. The genius of women, however, can only point the way; whereas Jesus Christ is the Way. And only those who remain in Him are fruitful. “I am the vine,” He said, “you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” These words of our Lord apply to us all, but I hope that, in a special way, they will be heard by women: “Whoever remains in me and I in her will bear much fruit.” By faith and Baptism we were joined to Jesus. What does it mean to “remain” in Him? It means to abide with Him in love. Therefore, we must nurture that love. And, here again, it’s women, especially women, who seem to have a special gift that God can use to show us the way: Women know deep in their bones that love is nurtured through frequent communication. Words are important. Without words, relationships languish and die. So also in the spiritual life, communication with God is essential: He abides in us though that holy communication we call grace and the sacraments, and we abide in Him through faith and love, which are nurtured by prayer – daily prayer, frequent prayer. I don’t know very much about modern technology, but I do know that it has greatly facilitated people’s communicating with each other. What with cell phones, and Facebook, and texting, and most lately Twittering, people now have the ability – and, it seems, an almost insatiable desire – to communicate with each other, almost minute by minute, about what seem to be fairly trivial things. Long before there was twittering and long before there were cell phones, there was prayer. Prayer is very low-tech (in fact, it’s no-tech!), and yet it puts us in instant communication with the most important Persons of all – the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity. And God is always happy to hear from us, even about the smallest things; because He loves us. Stay in touch with Him – Mothers, stay in touch with Him – and you will change the world. FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER - May 3, 2009 A summary of Msgr. Gaalaas’s homily: “I am the good shepherd,” Jesus said, “and I know mine and mine know me.” He knows each of us by name, and He certainly knows these little lambs by name – every one of them. And they know Him, too – because you parents and you teachers have shared your faith with them. A big part of that faith has to do with Jesus’ Real Presence in the Eucharist. Hence the desire of these children to receive Jesus today for the first time – and their excitement about it. For many months, you children have been preparing for this day, and it has finally arrived. It’s an important day, and therefore you are wearing special clothes. There may even be special gifts. And certainly there are special people here: family and friends have come from near and far, but the most special person of all is Jesus Christ. He is coming all the way from Heaven, which is very far, and yet also very near: Wherever Jesus is, there is Heaven; although we can’t see it now, anymore than we can see Jesus – except under the appearances of bread and wine. He comes as our Good Shepherd. What does a shepherd do for his sheep? For one thing, he makes sure they have enough to eat and drink. For actual sheep, that means a lot of grass and water. But we are people; so what is the Good Shepherd going to give us to eat and drink? Remember that Jesus is God, and He can give anything He wants. Will it be pizza and Coke? Will it be steak and champagne? No. Because He is so good and so powerful, He is going to give us something that is literally out of this world. He is going to give us something that no amount of money can buy. He is going to give us Himself! You are going to receive Him in Holy Communion for the first time. This is a sign that you are growing up, and we congratulate you about that. But I think a lot of us grown-ups want to be like you again. You want to grow up, and we want to become like you again – so excited to receive Jesus, so open, so innocent. You are an inspiration to us! I saw a sign in a church sacristy once. It was placed there to help us priests prepare for Mass. It read, “Celebrate this Mass as though it were your first Mass, as though it were your last Mass, as though it were your only Mass.” This good advice can be easily adapted to the reception of Holy Communion. Dear people of God, little lambs and sheep of His flock, receive your Holy Communion today as though it were your First Holy Communion, as though it were your last Holy Communion, as though it were your only Holy Communion. THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER - April 26, 2009 Synopsis of homily given at a Mass attended by parish high-school seniors: Jesus appeared in the Upper Room to convince His disciples that He was truly alive. He told them to look at His hands and His feet: “Touch me and see…a ghost does not have flesh and bones as I do,” He said. He also asked them if they had anything to eat. When they offered Him a piece of baked fish, He took it with a real hand, put it in a real mouth, chewed it with real teeth, and swallowed it down a real throat into a real stomach. Jesus is still entering into Upper Rooms. We call them churches. Every Catholic church is an Upper Room – even those, like ours, with lower levels! Why is He entering those Upper Rooms? For the very same reason He entered that first Upper Room; namely, to strengthen the faith of His disciples. Every Sunday is a little Easter, and at every Mass Jesus enters once again into the Upper Room. To do for every gathered group of disciples what He once did long ago – to strengthen the faith of His disciples. As we listen to His words and feed on His Body and Blood, we gain strength. But every Eucharistic encounter with the Risen Lord in the Upper Room (in churches such as our own) has something else as a further purpose. Jesus strengthened the faith of the disciples in that first Upper Room, so that they could be effective witnesses of His good news to others out there in the world: so that “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations….You are witnesses of these things,” He said. He is saying the same thing to you and me: We are to be witnesses of these things! What is a witness? Someone who testifies to what he or she has seen and knows to be true. You have been given a great light, seniors. Jesus does not want you to hide it under a bushel basket – or a high school diploma. He wants you to let it shine. And it will, if you allow Him to continue to strengthen you in faith, if you continue to gather in the Upper Rooms, like this one, near the schools to which you are going. Jesus will appear in your midst every little-Easter – every Sunday. He will strengthen you to continue the mission on which He is sending you; namely, to bring new disciples into those Upper Rooms with you, so that they too can be strengthened in faith and, like you, also be sent on mission, to gather other disciples in other Upper Rooms – until the Lord comes again and gathers us all into His arms. MERCY SUNDAY - April 19, 2009 Synopsis of the homily by Msgr. Gaalaas: On February 22, 1931, our Lord appeared to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska and asked that we celebrate a feast in honor of His Mercy on the Sunday after Easter. Pope John Paul II established this day as Divine Mercy Sunday. The Gospel for this Sunday tells two stories of the mercy of God. His mercy to Thomas: His patient and loving invitation. And His mercy to us all: the Sacrament of Penance. Good news/bad news: Mary Magdalene’s announcement to the Apostles. Fear is not the best, nor the greatest, motive for repentance. Joy is – the joy of meeting Jesus. “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” The Sacrament of Penance is Jesus’ “Easter gift to His Church” (John Paul II). It was given in the midst of joy (“the disciples rejoiced”), not to dampen joy, but to increase it. In fact, of itself it produces joy. Here you and I meet the risen Lord who shows His mercy to us just as He did to His Apostles on Easter night and to Thomas one week later. This is the day which the Lord’s Mercy has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. EASTER SUNDAY - April 12, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas Happy Easter! There’s a lot of meaning contained in those two words, “Happy Easter.” Why do we say “Happy Easter”? We say, “Happy Easter,” because the Lord is risen as He said. “Happy Easter,” because He is everything He claimed to be. “Happy Easter,” because everything He said has now been proven to be true! Through faith in Him, we’ve been saved – Happy Easter, indeed! Through Baptism we were joined to His risen Body; through Confirmation we were given the fullness of His Spirit; and in the Eucharist we eat the Bread of His own eternal Life! Happy Easter – because it’s all true! And how do we know it’s true? Because He said so – the One who proved that His words were true by rising from the dead. The importance of the Resurrection of Jesus for the faith of Christians has been understood from the very beginning. It was St. Paul who said, in one of the earliest books of the New Testament: “If Christ was not raised, your faith is worthless. You are still in your sins, and those who have fallen asleep in Christ are the deadest of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:17-18). But, thanks be to God, Christ has been raised, and we are not the “deadest of the dead”; we are the most alive of all the living! Aren’t we? Or, are we not? Do we really believe what we profess to believe, or are we just going along with the crowd? Have we really claimed this Catholic faith of ours, or is it still somebody else’s faith: the faith of my parents, the faith of my friends, the faith of my spouse, or the faith of my children? If so, why not ask the Lord, on this day of days, this day of Resurrection and new life, for the very thing He most wants to give – the gift of faith? With the gift of faith comes a wonderful light. It’s a light symbolized by the Easter Candle. Last night, this candle was carried into a darkened church. It was the only light visible. Our faith is like this Easter Candle: it’s a light in the darkness, a sure point of reference, and a glimmering hope. Draw near to that light, coming closer and closer, catching its fire and sharing it with others. The Easter Candle, of course, is only a symbol, a symbol of the true source of our hope. The real source of our hope is not this Easter Candle, this rather small and fragile thing; but rather, our hope is in the Source of light itself. The Source of our hope is God. And yet, God – who is infinitely powerful and the Creator of this immense universe – Himself chose to enter our world of time as a small and very fragile thing – a Child, a human Child. He grew, of course; but He didn’t grow very big. He remained a small thing even as a Man; small in the eyes of Imperial Rome, that is, and in the estimation of the religious world of His time; small and unimportant. And because the world could do it, the world chose to chew Him up and spit Him out – to crucify Him and to bury His mangled body in a borrowed tomb. They didn’t know who He really was. He was the Light of the world, a light in our darkness. The darkness did not comprehend it. But the darkness also could not overcome it. He was the dawn from on high, who had come to bathe everything in His light: “To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1: 79). He came to be your Light. He came to be your Life. And He is risen – He is risen from the dead! And He has chosen us to carry that good news to others, to the whole world. Happy Easter! HOLY THURSDAY - April 9, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas We celebrate two anniversaries tonight: the anniversary of the Eucharist and the anniversary of the Priesthood. When the Lord said to His Apostles, “Do this is memory of Me,” He ordained them; He made them His first priests. He gave them the power to do what He had just done: to make present His Body, which was broken for us, and His Blood, which was poured out for us. Tonight, then, is the anniversary of the institution of the Eucharist and also of the priesthood. Let me say just a few words first about the importance of the priesthood in regard to the Eucharist. Without the priesthood, there would be no Eucharist. Apart from this gift of God, which is the priesthood, there is no Mass. And without the Mass, there is no Eucharist. No man – apart from the power given him by God – can change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of the Lord. Without the gift of the priesthood, there is no Eucharist. Holy Thursday is a special day for Fr. Jose and me, because we’re priests. But the priesthood doesn’t really belong to us. The priesthood belongs to Jesus Christ, just as His Body and Blood belong to Him. It’s not our body and blood made present in the Eucharist; it’s the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ – through the power of the priesthood that belongs to Jesus Christ. He has shared that priesthood, so that, through certain men, He can also share His Body and Blood. The priesthood is important, because the Eucharist is important. My priesthood, and the priesthood of every priest, is in the service of the Eucharist for the sake of the Church. And our Model is Jesus, because Jesus is the High Priest and the Source of all priesthood. To have come from the Father to lay down His life on the Cross was not just Jesus’ day job; it was at the heart of who He was. The priesthood of Jesus Christ placed its stamp on everything He said and did: He had come to offer the supreme sacrifice – for the sake of others. That’s also meant to be so for Father Jose, and for me, and for all those others who share in the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ. The priesthood is not just something we do; it has placed its stamp on everything we are. Please pray tonight for priests, that their lives be wholly dedicated to Christ and to His bride, the Church. The gift of the priesthood is a very great gift, but the still greater gift we celebrate tonight – which is at the heart of everything we do – is the gift of the Eucharist. We Catholics, as you know, have a very definite teaching about the Eucharist, all stemming from what Jesus said and did on this holy night. Holding to the truth of the Lord’s words, we believe that what are bread and wine before the Consecration become His Body and Blood when the words spoken by Jesus on the night before He died are uttered now by His priests, as they say: “This is My Body…This is My Blood.” This is a great Mystery. It is at the center of our faith. The Eucharist is an extreme consolation and the Source of eternal life, because it is Christ Himself – not a mere representation of Him, but Christ Himself! Many people find it strange that, on this night of all nights, and at this Mass of all Masses, we don’t hear the Gospel story of the institution of the Eucharist. Instead, we hear the story of that night’s washing of the feet. Perhaps it’s because the Church wants us to understand the complete and deepest meaning of what we do at the Mass, Sunday after Sunday and day after day: That we make present, through the ministry of priests, not only the Body and Blood of the Lord, but also the Mystery of His humility – which all of us are to imitate. “Your attitude must be that of Christ,” said St. Paul. “Though he was in the form of God,…he emptied himself and took the form of a slave…he humbled himself, obediently accepting even death, death on a cross!” (Philippians 2). He gave His Body for us, not because He had to, but because He chose to – for the good others! He poured out His Blood for us, not because He had to, but because He chose to – for the life of the world! PASSION (PALM) SUNDAY – April 5, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas When I was a very little boy, I learned that the purpose of my existence is to know, love, and serve the Lord. As many of you did, I learned our religion from the Baltimore Catechism; and one of the first questions in that book was “Why did God make you?” We learned to answer that question almost automatically: “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life, so that I could be happy with Him forever in Heaven.” Today, on this Passion Sunday, I want to say, very simply, that knowing and loving Jesus will also entail knowing Him and loving Him as our Crucified Savior. To know Him as our crucified Savior will be to love Him all the more dearly. But how do we come to know Him as the Crucified One? Let me suggest a few ways we can do that. We can do that, number one, by listening to the story of His Passion (as we did today) or by reading it ourselves. We can do it, number two, by pondering the meaning of His Passion through prayer and meditation. Or, number three, we can do it by gazing at the crucifix and contemplating His wounds; and all the while never forgetting the depth of His inner suffering: that in that dark hour of His greatest need, He was left to suffer and to die alone, abandoned by His friends and, to all appearances, even by His heavenly Father. Every Catholic home should have a crucifix, preferably more than one; and they shouldn’t be just decorations. They should objects of veneration; and perhaps be taken down from the wall from time to time, to be held in our hands, pressed to our hearts, kissed with our lips, while remembering that all that Jesus suffered He suffered for you and for me. Unless we come to know Jesus as our suffering Savior, there’ll be something else about Him that we’ll never know. If we don’t understand the depth and extent of His suffering, we won’t understand, either, the depth and extent of His love: the love that drew Him down from Heaven to share our very nature; not only so that He could live among us, but also so that He could die among us, giving His life as a ransom for us all. And knowing the depth of His love, may we then love Him all the more deeply in return; and, for the love of Him, all the more eagerly serve Him – even to the point of taking up our own crosses and following in His footsteps. FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT - March 29, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas We’re now near the end of Lent. In a few days, we’ll celebrate our parish Penance rite, and then Holy Week. If we haven’t been very serious about Lent until now, there is still time to take seriously the words on our Lenten banner, which are also the words of today’s responsorial psalm: “A clean heart create in me, O God.” Our catechumens and candidates must be praying those words with special intensity in these days before their Baptisms, first confessions, and professions of faith. They are eagerly anticipating the creation of a clean heart in them, through faith and the sacraments. And you and I are on a similar journey, and we accompany them – even sacramentally. We’ve already been baptized, but we will renew our baptismal promises with them on Easter Sunday, and make our Easter Duty: our worthy reception of Holy Communion, and, in preparation for that, a worthy confession. Baptism, Confirmation, confession, and First Eucharist; and very soon after Easter, the Confirmation of our young people and the First Communions of our children. It’s a season of sacraments, a springtime of sacraments. And it’s fitting they should all be celebrated around Easter, because every celebration of a sacrament is a personal encounter with the Risen Lord. Today in the Gospel, we heard the Gentiles say to Philip, “We would like to see Jesus.” They wanted just to see Jesus. How much more wonderful it is actually to meet Him, to be touched by Him, and blessed by Him! And that’s exactly what happens in the sacraments. It happens in Baptism. It happens in Confirmation. It happens supremely in the Eucharist. And it also happens in confession. Confession, the sacrament of Penance, is, after Baptism, the very sacrament by which the Lord creates a clean heart in me: a heart cleansed of sin, a heart into which He places again His law of love, the seed of His love. It’s only in the soil of a clean heart that the seed of His love can grow and bear fruit. In fact, unless we gain these new hearts we’ll never arrive at the place for which we were made. Not having spiritual hearts, but earthly ones, we won’t come to know, love, and serve the Lord, but rather give ourselves to something else; and so never come to – or even much want – the thing for which we were made, the bliss of Heaven. “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” We all want to see Jesus; we all want to see God. St. Augustine said, “Lord, you have made is for yourself; and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” What a horrible thing, then, never to see God! To miss the thing for which we were made! And we will miss it, unless we allow the Lord to create that new heart in us, that heart cleansed of sin, that heart that has received the seed of His love. There is a prayer composed by St. Thomas Aquinas that a priest can recite privately before Mass. Some of its words are these: “We receive Jesus now under the veil of a sacrament. May we one day see Him face to face in glory.” May we one day see in Heaven the One who meets us now in the sacraments. Let’s prepare for Easter, then, by making a good confession; and by that sacrament prepare for the day of our own resurrection – and an eternity of bliss. “Create a clean heart in me, O God.…in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense. Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and of my sin cleanse me.” FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT - March 22, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas The story of the man born blind and his being cured by Jesus is one of the most interesting in the Gospel according to St. John. It’s the story of a man who is given his sight both physically and spiritually, while those who think they can see are shown to be, spiritually, as blind as bats. The man born blind had never seen anything before he met Jesus, and the first thing he laid his two good eyes on was … Jesus! At first he didn’t fully understand what he saw: he thought Jesus was just “the man” who “made clay and anointed my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’” A little later, he would call Jesus “a prophet.” And by the end of the story, he would come to believe in Jesus as “the Son of Man” – and he “worshiped him.” The pool of Siloam was a foreshadowing of the water of Baptism and the enlightenment it brings about who Jesus really is. And so it’s a story we hear on this Sunday in Lent as our catechumens prepare for Baptism at the Easter Vigil. And as we prepare with them – for the renewal, at Easter, of our baptismal promises. We all want to see Jesus, and to see Him more and more clearly, and to worship Him with a cleansed conscience. This means that we must all be willing to become learners again, so as to see Jesus in a new and better way; unlike the Pharisees in today’s Gospel, who refused to see Jesus even as a prophet. Their sin was the sin of pride. They said, “We see”; but in fact they didn’t. How often do we say the same thing? We say, “We see”; but in fact we don’t. One of the big lessons we can learn from today’s Gospel is the importance of humility, humility as an antidote to pride. Pride is one of our greatest enemies, and yet we treat it as though it were a bosom friend. Pride is perhaps the biggest roadblock on our way to salvation: the tallest and the widest. Unless we get beyond it, we’ll not get to Heaven. But how to get rid of it? One of the principal means of getting rid of pride is to grow in its opposite virtue, which is humility. And one of the greatest means we have of growing in humility is the sacrament of Penance (confession). If you want to grow in humility, try making an honest confession of your sins to another human being! That’ll do it! To admit our sins, out loud, to another person will, over time, chip away at pride. But the first and most critical step is to admit to ourselves that we have sinned; that’s where our first battle with pride has to be fought. Pride distorts our thinking in several ways: it will cause us to be in denial that what we’re doing is wrong; or to not want to admit it, and to get angry when somebody else points it out. We tell ourselves, it’s okay to go on as we are. We cling to our sins and pridefully elevate our judgment above the judgment of anyone else, sometimes even above the judgment of Christ and the Church. These are the signs of sinful pride, a pride that blinds us to how things really are. The remedy to pride is to do what Jesus says. Jesus told the man in the Gospel to go wash in the pool of Siloam. The man did what Jesus told him to do, and he was healed. Jesus tells us to go to the sacraments: to immerse ourselves in the grace of the sacraments, that our bodies may be healed and our souls may be cleansed. The man in the Gospel may have wondered what good it would do to wash in the water of that pool; but, with the obedience of faith, he did what Jesus said. And after he had done so, he began to see. This Lent, as every Lent, is a time of grace for us; a time especially to seek the grace of the sacraments, so that we can be healed of our blindness. For our catechumens, this means to seek the grace of Baptism. For those of us already baptized, it means to be washed in the healing grace of Penance. That’s a thing our pride will baulk at. It’s a thing our pride will resist. Good! Mortify that pride, and go to confession! But first examine your conscience and prepare to confess and repent of everything you know to be a sin, not just according to your own lights, but according to the mind of Christ and the teaching of His Church. That, too, will mortify pride – which is the enemy of our salvation and a cause of our blindness. By mortifying pride – putting it to death – and growing in humility by the confession of our sins, we’ll be obedient to the words of St. Paul, who was once blind himself, and who said to us: “Brothers and sisters,…Live as children of light….Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; rather expose them…‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.’” SECOND SUNDAY OF LENT - March 8, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas A father’s love and a son’s obedience. Prophecy and fulfillment. Transfiguration and crucifixion and resurrection. Today’s Scriptures contain all that and more. Where to begin? Most parents love their children. Did Abraham love his son Isaac? Yes, he did. Then why was he prepared to see him die? Because he trusted that God would save him – would save Isaac. God had made a promise, and Abraham trusted that God would keep that promise. God had promised that through Isaac there would come so many descendents that you couldn’t even count them; they’d be more numerous than the grains of sand on the seashore or the stars in the sky. Abraham trusted that God would keep His word. And so He did. But there was a death on the mountain that day. It wasn’t Isaac who died; it was a ram, a sheep caught by its horns in a thicket. Abraham didn’t know it, and Isaac didn’t know it; but that ram was a foreshadowing of the innocent Lamb who would die, in place of us all, on Mount Calvary. In fact, tradition has it that the “height” in the land of Moriah, where Isaac’s life was spared, would later be called the hill of Calvary, the very same place where Jesus laid down His life on the cross – the innocent Lamb in the place of us sinners. The ram “hung up in the tree” was a foreshadowing of Jesus, said the early Church Fathers. So also was the innocent Isaac. Isaac had carried the wood of the sacrifice on his shoulders. So did Jesus, the innocent Son of the heavenly Father, carry on His shoulders the wood of the cross, carried it up that very same hill. Prophecy, Promise, and Fulfillment. Just as Isaac’s life was, as it were, given back to him; so also Jesus’ life would be given back to Him – in the resurrection. But not before He had drunk the cup of suffering to the dregs, not before He had both suffered and died. To prepare His disciples for a death that He knew would shock them, Jesus took them up a high mountain and allowed them to see His glory and to hear the voice of the heavenly Father say, “This is my beloved Son.” What meaning can the Sacrifice of Isaac or the Transfiguration of Jesus have for us in our daily lives? As we meditate on these two stories, what’s our “take-away,” as they say? Have you ever had what’s called a mountain-top experience in which God seemed very close, and you wished it would last forever? Or, on the other hand, have you ever been made to suffer and wondered where God was, because all of a sudden He seemed very silent? If so, we begin to see that these two stories are also our stories. We are Isaac; we are Abraham. We are Peter, James, and John. And we are Jesus. Like Abraham, our faith is sometimes tested. Like Isaac, we are sometimes frightened. Like Peter, James, and John, we are sometimes puzzled and confused. And like Jesus, we suffer and we die. But, through everything, our Father keeps His promises. We are precious to Him. Our lives will therefore be saved, and death is not the end. That’s the bottom line, that’s the take-away -- that we mustn’t ever lose faith in God or lose hope in His promises. This may not keep us from suffering, and it won’t keep us from dying. But it will keep us from being separated from Christ – and, thereby, losing everything. St. Paul put it beautifully: “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” God bless you and give you much strength as you face the everyday troubles of life. FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT - March 1, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas The forty days Jesus spent in the desert are the symbolic beginning of the forty days of Lent. For Jesus, the desert was a place to pray, to commune with the Father; and it was the Holy Spirit, St. Mark tells us, who “drove him there.” You might think the desert was a place in which Jesus could be alone, but that was not to be the case. There seems to have been quite a crowd. Many other living things were with Him in the desert: Satan, and wild beasts, and the angels who ministered to Him there. It was a war zone. And so is our life in the United States of America a war zone in this Lent of 2009. There are few “oases” in the desert of modern America to nourish our spiritual life. And although we are here because God put us here, and we are ministered to by angels, still we have Satan to contend with and the “wild beasts” of many temptations. This life of ours is a “spiritual warfare,” a life-or-death struggle between the forces of good and evil. Sometimes it’s easy to know the good guys from the bad guys. But as Alexander Solzhenitsyn once said: “…the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts,” he said. “Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil” (The Gulag Archipelago). On Ash Wednesday, I called Lent a “spiritual boot camp,” “basic training” for the struggle with evil that we face every day. I also spoke about prayer and said it was one of most important things we could do to preserve ourselves from spiritual death. Today I want to talk about fasting and to present it as an antidote to something the ancients called Luxuria. Luxuria is a Latin word; it stands for one of the Seven Capital Sins. We know it as the sin of Lust. And yet Luxuria means more than “lust”; it also means “extravagance.” It’s interesting that lust should be paired with extravagance, and yet it’s also a part of the great tradition of Christian wisdom that fasting from extravagance is an antidote to lust and a great ally of chastity. Modern-day America is certainly full enough of lust and extravagance, to the point that most of us encounter them everyday, and, in fact, struggle with them every day. And so, Lent presents us with an opportunity to be trained and equipped against two of our most common and deadly foes – an opportunity to be trained in the art of fasting. What does it mean to fast, and how can we do it? Fasting means to abstain from what we don’t really need. Most often that means fasting from unnecessary food, and I highly recommend it to you. But in modern America, there are a lot of things that we don’t really need. Unnecessary food is certainly one of them, but there are others too. For example, why not also fast from unnecessary preoccupations, from unnecessary noise and sensory stimulation? More specifically, why not fast from TV, and radio? From cell phones, computer games, surfing the Web, movies, idle chatter, romance novels, and entertainment magazines? All of these things are extravagances, and many of them present us with significant temptations against purity. Why not get rid of them? Why not give prayer a chance? There’s a refrain in the one of the songs of The Beatles that says, “Give peace a chance”: “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” What I’m saying is give prayer a chance. Prayer doesn’t stand a chance in a life filled with noise. Mother Teresa of Calcutta had it right when she said that prayer is the “fruit of silence.” Of course, Jesus understood this long before Mother Teresa! In fact, she had learned it from Him. When Jesus wanted to pray, He went into the desert. Communion with God in prayer is perhaps our greatest ally in turning back the temptations of sin and Satan; for “Greater is he who is within you [in our hearts and minds through prayer] than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). We who are baptized have been saved from the flood, as St. Peter said; and yet every day, in modern America, we are in danger of drowning in a sea of filth. But God has not abandoned us; He has not left us alone. In the same place where we struggle with the wild beasts of temptation, we are also ministered to by angels – and by the One whom the angels adore. And He gave us an example by His own life of fasting and prayer. To be victorious in our struggle with evil, we too must fast and pray: listening to God in the silence of prayer and, through fasting, leading lives unconquered by extravagance and lust. May God bless and keep you in your observance of Lent! SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – February 14, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas I received a valentine in the mail this week. It didn’t come in a fancy envelope, but my name was neatly typed; and it began, “Dear Msgr. Gaalaas.” It was from the Bishop. It’s something he does every year; he’s very faithful to it. There’s nothing “exclusive” about it, you understand; he sends these valentines to just about everybody. You probably got one, too. Each of the valentines comes with our Bishop’s signature on it; but, in a certain sense, it’s not really from him – it’s from the Lord. The Lord was telling me that He loved me, and that He needed me. He was telling me that He needed me to help Him help others. I suppose you know that I’m talking about the annual Diocesan Development Fund campaign letter. It comes every year around this time. The Bishop appeals to us on behalf of the Lord, asking for our assistance in providing needed services to thousands of people in the Diocese of Tulsa. It’s not the Catholic Charities campaign, which is for the materially poor. No, the DDF is to help the Bishop in those other areas so necessary in the faith-life of the local Church: Things such as our Vocations Office and our program for the Permanent Diaconate, our Family Life Office and our Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, our Eastern Oklahoma Catholic Magazine, our Marriage Tribunal, our Office of Hispanic Ministry, our Prison Ministry, and our Rural Ministry. Without our help, these necessary good works would languish or go undone. And so, for those of you who might not have received that letter from our Lord, or responded to it yet, we have a lot of “valentines” in the pews today. They’re located at the ends of the pews; would those sitting there please pass them down. If you got a valentine from Jesus, you’d want to respond to it, wouldn’t you? Think of this blank envelope as a valentine from Jesus, and of your completed envelope as a valentine to Jesus – an expression of your love for Him. This really is from Jesus. And what we do with it, is our gift to Him, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Those are pretty good reasons for taking part in this process, don’t you think? My hope as your pastor is that every household in the parish will respond in some way. As with the valentines of little children, it’s not so important that it contain a big gift. Anything will please Jesus if it’s given with a generous heart. Please be sure to put your name and address on the envelope, and the name of our parish. And then indicate the amount of your gift (large or small) and the manner in which you are making it: whether a pledge, or a one-time gift, or by Electronic Funds Transfer. We’ll take a few minutes now for you to complete your envelopes. Please just put them in the basket as it passes you at the offertory. . . . In our second reading St. Paul said, “[W]hatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” That certainly applies to what we’re doing here today. FIFTH SUNDAY IN ORINARY TIME - February 8, 2009 Homily Preached by Msgr. Gaalaas We meet three men in the Scriptures today, Job, Paul, and Jesus, who, every one of them, find themselves in circumstances that you and I would find it easy to complain about. But only one of them does: Job. Job complains in an eloquent lament. He says: “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?... He is a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for his wages….My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope….I shall not see happiness again.” Of course, Job had a lot to complain about. So did Paul and Jesus, but they didn’t complain. Why didn’t they complain? Both of them were working very hard, pouring themselves out for others. But we don’t hear them complaining about it. “When I preach,” St. Paul says, “I offer the gospel free of charge so as not make full use of my right in the gospel. Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible.” Paul was a tireless worker – and he didn’t complain about it. Neither did Jesus complain about all the work the Father had given Him to do. After a busy Sabbath in the synagogue, where He’d cured a man possessed by a demon, He went to the home of Simon and Andrew, and cured Simon’s mother-in-law. A person who can do things like that is a person a lot of people want to talk to. And so within a few hours, St. Mark says, “the whole town was gathered at the door.” It was now after sunset (and the time for rest), but Jesus kept on helping the people who needed Him: “He cured many who were sick” and “drove out many demons,” the Gospel says. After a night like that, you and I might have slept in. But not Jesus! St. Mark tells us that Jesus rose “very early” the next morning, in fact “before dawn,” and went off to a deserted place to pray. And when Simon and the others found Him, He said, “Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also. For this purpose I have come.” And so He went into their synagogues “throughout the whole of Galilee.” And not a word of complaint! What was His secret? And what was the secret of St. Paul and all those others who imitate Jesus? I think it’s this: that they see the circumstances of their lives as indications of the will of God – and they embrace it! They seek to know the will of God so as to do the will of God. They allow themselves to be taught by the will of God, and therein find peace and joy, even as they pour themselves out for others at the cost of personal hardship. There is surely a lesson here for busy moms and dads, for over-scheduled students, for frazzled business people, for overworked doctors and nurses, and even for children who’d rather play than do their chores. We can all relate to the complaining of Job, because we’ve all been there. Complaining is what we do easily and naturally. How might we do things differently? What can we learn from Jesus and the saints? This, I think. They didn’t complain, because they trusted in the wisdom and goodness of the heavenly Father; they trusted that God knew what He was doing and that He hadn’t forgotten about them. And that same realization can be ours. It’s an act of faith nurtured by prayer. We see in today’s Gospel how prayer was central in the life of Jesus; how even before dawn, and after a very short night, He went off to a deserted place to pray; and there He remained for perhaps hours. I am going to share with you something that might have been going on in the mind of Jesus in those hours of prayer. It’s something that Cardinal Mercier in the early part of the last century called “a secret of sanctity and happiness.” The Cardinal said: “If every day during five minutes, you will keep your imagination quiet, shut your eyes to all the things of sense, and close your ears to all the sounds of earth, so as to be able to withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, speaking there to that Holy Spirit saying: “O Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore Thee. Enlighten, guide, strengthen and console me. Tell me what I ought to do and command me to do it. I promise to be submissive in everything Thou permittest to happen to me, only show me what is Thy will. “If you do this,” the Cardinal says, “your life will pass happily and serenely. Consolation will abound even in the midst of troubles. Grace will be given in proportion to the trial as well as strength to bear it, bringing you to the Gates of Paradise full of merit. “This submission to the Holy Spirit is the Secret of Sanctity.” And, I might add, the secret of interior peace and joy, and of a life poured out for others with very few complaints. FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - February 1, 2009 Homily preached by Msgr. Gaalaas Moses said to the people: “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you,” for “This is exactly what you requested of the Lord, your God, at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let us not again hear the voice of the Lord, our God, nor see this great fire any more, lest we die.’” At Horeb (another name for Mt. Sinai), the Israelites had been very frightened. And for good reason; because when God came down to speak with Moses there and, through Moses, to give the people His commandments, He had done so with a great display of power. There had been lightning and thunder and thick clouds. And the people had been told that they were not to approach the mountain or to touch it, lest they die. Now, Moses was growing old and would soon not longer be with them, and the people didn’t want to be left alone with God. They wanted another prophet like Moses – as a mediator. They didn’t want to deal with God directly; because God, as God, was too frightening. And God did send them a prophet, but more than a prophet: He sent His own Divine Son who assumed our human nature -- He sent Jesus, someone like Moses, someone “with skin on,” someone who was truly human, and yet more than human: true God and, yet, also true man. In His humanity Jesus was very much like Moses: Jewish, a teacher, and a miracle-worker. And there were other likenesses. When Moses was a baby, he had been nearly killed by Pharaoh. When Jesus was a baby, He had been nearly killed by Herod. Moses delivered God’s people from slavery in Egypt; Jesus delivered us from slavery to sin and death. In the days of Moses, God sent bread from heaven to keep His people from dying; but in the Person of His Son, God gave us true heavenly Bread, the Bread of Life to keep us from dying everlastingly. Almighty God, who in His majesty had so frightened the Israelites, walked among us in the humility of His humanity. Why? Because love made Him do it: Love for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, love for lost humanity. Love made Him do it. Love brought Him here – and love keeps Him here, in the Eucharist. Moses is no longer with us, but Jesus abides – not just in some spiritual sense, but truly and substantially present, in the Eucharist! v The Israelites met God at Mt. Sinai, and it scared them. We meet God every time we gaze at the Eucharist. They were forbidden to touch the mountain on which God appeared, lest they die. We take God Himself in our hands and put Him in our mouths – a phenomenal privilege! But there is a danger in all this closeness, the danger of over-familiarity, a familiarity that could breed contempt. What can we do to guard against it? I can think of three or four things we can do. The first is to go to Confession regularly; so that we never take Him in our hands and place Him in our mouths unworthily and, by that unworthy touching, die. Another safeguard is Eucharistic adoration: gazing at the sacred Host displayed in the monstrance and affirming our faith in Christ’s Real Presence there; or, making short visits to the Blessed Sacrament reserved in the tabernacle, even visits before and after Sunday Mass. Still another thing we might do, though it may seem less spiritual, is to pay greater attention to what we wear to Mass, to dress “up” for Mass, to put on our “Sunday best.” Clothes, of course, don’t make a Christian any more than they make a monk. They can be worn to make a fashion statement rather than a faith statement. And we’d be very wrong to wear nice clothes to Mass just to make a good impression on others. But on the other hand, we’d be very right to wear them if the reason we wear them is to make a good impression on ourselves; that is to say, to impress on our minds and hearts that what we do here in church is absolutely unlike anything else we do in life: We come to Mass to meet the great I AM, who for our sakes has mercifully disguised His power – but not His love. |
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