2020

As a teenager, from our living room window, I could see Mt. Rainier on a clear day. I understood why the local Indians named this peak the Mountain of God. At 14000 feet, majestic Mt. Rainier is an awesome challenge for anyone to climb. Many years ago, nine physically handicapped people joined together in climbing the mountain to the summit. One had an artificial leg; five were blind; two were deaf; and one had epilepsy. In spite of all this, together they made the summit and came back without a mishap. When asked how they did this, one of the blind men said, “We got a lot of help from each other.”

I would also say that they trusted each other while making this not so easy climb. Trust is a word we hear often but do we ever consider its meaning? What is the opposite of trust? Most anyone I asked would say distrust.

According to a European theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg, the direct opposite of trust is actually security. If trust means that I am willing to place at least a portion of my life in some one else’s care, then its opposite must be the desire to take care of everything by myself. The opposite of trust then is to be totally self-sufficient.

Being self-sufficient is a goal that many people set for themselves but that is not what I hear Jesus endorsing in this parable. We have just heard about three servants who were handed talents according to their ability. Instead of being self-sufficient, the master trusted his servants to handle his assets well in his absence.

At a glance, this parable is confusing. As usual, Jesus used outlandish images to make his point. This parable is meant to jolt us into a deeper awareness of what God expects of us. A talent was equivalent to 16 years’ wages. Jesus didn’t live in a capitalist society that relied on investments, so I doubt this was a lesson on financial investments. What then was his point?

Jesus was the man going on a journey. He knew that his time was drawing to a close and that he would be leaving his disciples behind. But someday, he would return and when he does, he will judge his servants, which includes you and me, on how well we used our talents to spread the Good News and bring about his kingdom.

Most of us know there is a risk involved whenever we invest money and the same can be said for investing in “the spiritual stock market.” Anytime I take the readings at hand and prepare a homily, I am taking a risk. I may alienate someone with the message of my homily and the readings. At the same time, I hope that what I say will draw you, the listener, to an even closer relationship with God.

Jesus expects all of us to take a risk in using our talents and resources to share the Good News and bring about his kingdom. Every one of us from childhood to our golden years has a part in the building of God’s kingdom. Our part is likely to evolve as time passes, but he is counting on us to do our part in sharing the Good News by what we say and do. We all have talents that God hopes we will put to good use.

As with the servant who buried his talent, fear is what stops some people from doing their part in sharing the Good News. Fear paralyzed that servant, prompting him to play it safe but in the end he gets the stinging rebuke, “You wicked, lazy servant!” Might Jesus say that to us? I hope not.

Jesus has put his trust in us, providing us with talents to further the kingdom of God on earth. He wants us to make good use of what we have been given so that his kingdom of peace and justice may prosper. He takes pleasure in what we accomplish but for the complacent and fearful, the parable comes with a warning. “Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside.”

There is no reason to be afraid. Imagine Jesus saying to you, “Make use of your talents, don’t bury them. Enrich yourself, your community, your church, and the kingdom of God with loving concern for the welfare of others. Your lasting security comes from trusting God. Do this and you won’t have to worry about your future encounter with me at your last judgment.”

Life is God’s gift to you. What you do with life is your gift to God. God has endowed each of us in different ways and in different degrees. God has gifted every one of us. It is not what you have that is important; it is what you do with what you have. As one coach used to say to his team, “Do not let what you can’t do interfere with what you can do.”

In the midst of this pandemic that continues to impact the health and fiscal well being of so many, let us pray that we use our talents generously to build the kingdom. Like those who climbed the mountain of God, we all have limitations but trusting in one another and working together as a team, we can make the Kingdom of God more visible to others by what we say and do.

On  Facebook this morning I found this quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

This parable is not about wedding customs or about staying awake at night. The bottom line is being prepared to meet Christ. How often do we find ourselves poorly prepared like the foolish virgins? Perhaps there are a few college alumni present who can relate to this story of a foolish freshman.

The night before his first final exam, this student, who believed that he always worked best under pressure, finally got out his books and notes at 10:00 and began to study. He was doing well—reviewing his notes and highlighting certain passages in his textbooks. Around 2:00 in the morning, he fell asleep at his desk. When he woke up, he was stunned to discover he was an hour late for class.

Grabbing his pen, he ran to class. There he desperately explained to his professor what had happened. As one would expect, the teacher wasn’t sympathetic and just said, “Well, do what you can with the time you have.” Needless to say, when the grades were posted, he didn’t pass.

Highlighting on the custom of his time, Jesus tells the story of ten virgins, five of whom he called foolish for not being prepared. Unlike those who were wise, they did not have sufficient oil for their lamps to last through the night. Caught short-handed, they had to fetch more oil elsewhere and while they were gone, the bridegroom arrived.

In the early years of the Church, many believed that Jesus, as the bridegroom, would soon return in majestic glory. The end times were near. By the time Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians, many early Christians had died and hope of Jesus’ return in glory was beginning to fade.

Realizing that the return of Christ was not eminent prompted Matthew to write his gospel for future generations. He included the parable of the ten virgins to caution his readers that like the bridegroom, Jesus was delayed in coming. We do not know when Christ will return in majestic glory but we must be prepared when the moment arrives.

It may seem strange to you that the wise virgins refused to share what oil they had with their foolish counterparts. After all, that sounds selfish, but Jesus is speaking of something that couldn’t be shared. If we see the “oil” as our good deeds and acts of love, that explains why the wise virgins couldn’t share what they had with the foolish virgins. The oil we use to light our lamps comes from our good deeds and acts of love, from being good stewards.

Such a life asks us to share our gifts of time, talent and treasure. Yes, the parish benefits from these gifts, but more importantly, we are concerned about the person you are becoming. The parish ultimately exists for the sake of your eternal salvation and we want you to be prepared for the day you take your last breath by living this life well.

Like the wise virgins, we have “oil” in our lamps. If we practice stewardship, we will have the generous, humble and open hearts, which the Lord requires of us. But if we keep putting off what really matters, Jesus may one day say to us, “I do not know you.” As the foolish virgins and freshman learned too late, each person has the responsibility to be prepared, for someday there will be no second chance.

When we strive to live unselfishly and care about the needs and interests of others as well as our own, our chances of being a member of the heavenly family will be granted. If we are vigilant, thus mindful of our responsibility before God to be good stewards of what we have, we will grow in kindness and compassion. That is truly being prepared.

Hanging on the wall near our baptismal font is a tapestry depicting Jesus being baptized. The original tapestry is one of 25 lining the walls of the Cathedral in Los Angeles, woven in Belgium, which portray 135 wonderfully diverse saints. These holy people, black, white, brown, male, female, young and old, appear in all their beautiful humanity, representing every era of our Christian history. Many of the figures are familiar but some are anonymous. Silently they grace the walls of this majestic cathedral. Their diversity reminds us that we are all called to holiness and sainthood.

The author of Revelation tells us that 144,000 from every tribe of Israel were marked with the seal along with a great multitude that could not be counted. That number sounds huge but it isn’t to be taken literally. The author was using math. Twelve, the number of tribes, representing the entire Jewish people, was squared then multiplied by 1,000. Recall how God told Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Added to that total was a vast number from every race, people and tongue.

These people stood before the throne of God wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out, “Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb.”

Who are these souls wearing white robes, and where did they come from? They were ordinary folks like you and me. As John tells us, they are children of God. They have made it to heaven, perhaps with a stop in purgatory, in spite of their many trials and tribulations and their moments of sinfulness because they heeded the advice of the good shepherd, following his blueprint to salvation that is outlined for us in the beatitudes. In this eloquent passage, Jesus suggests what our dispositions should be if we seek to spend eternity with him and the saints. The beatitudes characterize a person who trusts in God for everything.

Essentially, Jesus calls us away from being self-centered to being God centered. He describes his followers’ blessed way of life in eight ways. They are the ones who have been poor in spirit, have mourned without comfort, have longed for their inheritance with meekness, have hungered and thirsted for justice, have been merciful and clean of heart, have tried to build peace and has suffered for all these choices. Their striving to live this way in imitation of Jesus has not always been perfect or easy. Being human, they have stumbled and erred but have repeatedly asked forgiveness and tried again. They are the ones whom others may never have thought of as being saintly but who placed their trust in God, knowing that only by God’s grace can we be washed clean and clothed in radiance.

The last of the beatitudes, articulated in two different ways, reminds Christians that Jesus is their model and that the more we imitate him, the more we can expect to share his sufferings, his sorrows and his joys. Obviously, the attitudes Jesus describes here spring from a deep, loving relationship with God. That is what every saint holds in common.

Jesus called them blessed because they have grasped his understanding of life. Such an attitude is incompatible with lording it over others, culminating instead in gratitude.

When the beatitudes reflect our mindset, we weep over any society that allows children to be exploited by drugs, sex and crass commercialism.  We mourn over a society that allows a million and a half abortions per year.  We mourn over a society that takes children away from their parents and holds them in cages. We seek to respect the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death.

Today’s feast assures us of a place someday within the great heavenly chorus when we accept the grace of being sealed as God’s own. That happened at our baptism. Then choosing to live each day in accord with that grace.

We belong to an immense family, a great cloud of witnesses, who constantly surround us, praying for us and with us, urging us onward toward our final reunion with God and them.

What we can note about the saints, whether they are familiar to us or the ones who live in our neighborhoods is that they come in every shape, size, color, and age. They are set apart, not by their intelligence, talent, education, work, mother tongue, culture, but by the fact that like Jesus and Mary, they have accepted their life as a vocation to holiness, an opportunity to receive and spread God’s limitless love. Seeking to be holy should be every Christian’s goal in life.

Will we be numbered among the saints someday? Do we have the courage to proclaim God’s love with our lives? Hopefully, the answer is a resounding yes. That is why we pray today on the Solemnity of All Saints. We pray for the courage to follow the Lord.  We pray for the courage to put God first in our lives.  May the Lord help us to stand for him and with him all the days of our lives. 

We just heard a well-known line used by some who advocate a separation of church and state. I doubt that was what Jesus or Matthew intended since such a notion was unheard of back then. Rather, Matthew depicted Jesus as being thought provoking and clever, teaching his critics that everyone holds a dual citizenship. Our birth makes us citizens of an earthly nation for now; our baptism makes us citizens of the heavenly kingdom for eternity. Jesus is telling us that we need to live out both citizenships responsibly.

The degree of separation between church and state varied throughout history. Some argue that the Church is no place to discuss politics but as you can see, even Jesus did that. The first amendment simply states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The intent is to prevent Congress from imposing a certain faith on its citizens, which King Henry VIII had done in England. The Church has authority in political matters when politics invades its turf, namely upholding the dignity and meaning of human life, all human life from conception to natural death.

The founders of our country were convinced that the American experiment could not succeed without the benefit of religious belief. They considered religion to be the backbone of society and the strength of its citizens. They knew religion was good for the country. And how could it be otherwise? Politics is the social organization of a culture, the structure of a country’s values, the daily operations of its beliefs. But religion is the depth dimension of a culture that gives everything else it’s meaning.

Politics and religion are different aspects of people’s lives, but they are intimately connected because they deal with how people relate to one another, and religion highlights our relationship with God, which serves as the foundation of all other relationships in our lives.

When people argue that church and state should be separate, that is akin to making God subject to our laws, our politics, and our ideas. But think back to our first reading from Isaiah. There we heard God say, “I am the Lord, there is no other.” The truth of God’s sovereignty is echoed in many of our country’s founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence.

The Church doesn’t seek to run our country or the world by means of political power. Nonetheless, she needs to be actively engaged in seeking the good of others. Her power is vested in Christ the King. Our loyalty to him is for eternity, while our loyalty to our country is only for this lifetime.

In a democratic society such as ours, where all citizens can participate directly in the political process, we have certain responsibilities, such as paying taxes and voting. We have to make a decent effort to stay informed about important political and cultural issues so that we can vote responsibly and intelligently. That isn’t always easy since not all issues are on the same level.

We are only weeks away from a national election that many concede has great consequences in these unusual days of pandemic and rancor. In the past week, ballots were mailed to every registered voter; hopefully every voter will take time to study the issues, consider the strengths and shortcoming of the candidates, then complete and sign their ballot.

Unfortunately, there are voters who won’t bother to vote, convinced that their vote won’t make much difference. Let me share with you the value of a single vote.

Because of one vote in 1921, Adolf Hitler became leader of the Nazi Party in Germany. That one vote ultimately cost the lives of six million Jews in the worst holocaust in history. If just one more person had voted for the other candidate, might we have been spared all the pain and deaths of WWII? Yes, one vote can literally change history.

Contrary to what some people assume, the Church is not telling us whom to vote for. The Church does not endorse candidates for public office. Rather, the Church respects your right and duty to study the issues and to make an informed, conscience-driven decision about whom to vote for. Alas, neither major party reflects or supports all that the Church teaches regarding the sanctity of human life and rare is the candidate that does so.

For those who are using abortion as a litmus test, Pope Francis cautions that a conscientious Catholic cannot be a single-issue voter. Being pro-life means far more than opposing abortion. To be pro-life means to care about the life of the unborn, the newly born, the sick, the elderly, the poor, the homeless, the refugee, the inmate on death row, and every other human being. To be pro-life also means to be committed to uprooting the terrible scourge of racism, which continues to tear our nation apart.

If we want to know how to help our nation heal, how to treat one another, or even how to vote, we need only ponder the awesome gospel of Jesus Christ, which provides us with the very basis of Catholic moral and social teaching. Its broad embrace should influence how every Christian exercises the sacred duty of voting responsibly. May Jesus Christ and his Gospel inspire and challenge each of us as we prepare to cast our vote in this and every election.