Homilies

What happened to the disciples on Pentecost brings to mind the story of a certain teenager who also found himself transformed in ways he never expected. 

 

One day he and his mother were rummaging through a second hand store when they spotted a thick black wool chesterfield topcoat. The coat, with a velvet black collar, elegant tailoring and fancy label was like new. Whoever owned it had taken good care of it. And the price was an unbelievable $28.

 Dark woolen topcoats were very popular with the kids at the boy’s high school but they usually cost several hundred dollars. The teenager slid his arms down into the heavy satin lining of the sleeves and buttoned the coat. He turned from side to side, eyeing himself in the mirror with a serious expression that soon broke into a smile. It was a perfect fit.

 

The boy, whose name was John, wore the coat to school the next day. “How did your friends like your new coat?” his mother asked. “They loved it,” John said as he carefully draped the coat over the back of a chair.

 

Over the next few weeks, John’s mother noticed a change in her son. Agreement replaced contrariness; quiet, reasoned discussion replaced arguments. John became more mannerly, more thoughtful, and eager to please. He was more generous and patient with his younger brother, chores were willingly and cheerfully done, and his homework was completed without nagging.

 

When she mentioned the change to one of John’s teachers, she was told, “It must be the coat!” John’s mother had this to say, “John and I both know we should never mistake a person’s clothes for the real person within them. But there is something to be said for wearing a standard of excellence in thought, speech and behavior, and for matching what is on the inside with what is on the outside.”

 

Like the effect John’s coat seemed to have on him, the Spirit of God certainly had an impact on the disciples. Until Pentecost, which came 50 days after Easter, they had been hiding in the upper room, uncertain what to do. Jesus had promised to send them the Holy Spirit and when that happened, as we heard from our first reading, they finally understood all that Jesus had shared with them during his ministry. They were empowered to venture forth and share the good news with anyone who would listen. No longer timid or intimidated, the disciples preached God’s message of love, forgiveness and salvation, not just in their native Aramaic, but in the languages of those who were listening.

 

From its humble beginnings in Jerusalem, the Church grew, eventually reaching all the corners of the world. Its many believers were joined together by a common faith in spite of their different languages and cultures. What has enabled the Church to grow, as Paul tells us, is the ongoing presence of the Spirit enabling us to share our many different gifts and ministries.  The Church is vibrant when its members all see themselves as coming together and using their different gifts and talents to follow the example of the early disciples.

 

I recall the day when I first understood the point Paul was making here that we make up the body of Christ.  As with our own bodies, some parts may not seem as important as other parts. I could lose a finger and still have a useful hand but without the rest of me, that finger could not survive. That image strongly impressed upon me how important the faith community of the Church is for my spiritual wellbeing. Likewise, the well-grounded faith community depends on its many members to pool together their talents and treasures to instill new life in the parish. 

 

Simply put, God is counting on all of us to do our share in proclaiming the good news of salvation by word and example. Some of us forget that the mission of being a disciple was entrusted to us at our baptism.  You might be thinking to yourself that faith is a private matter between you and God. If that is the case, then you aren’t seeing the whole picture of what being Christian is about.

 

A well-rooted faith depends on all the parts being put together: scripture, sacraments, prayer, study, worship, and a community of believers. Leave out any one of these essential components and we will be left with a faith that could easily fall apart in the face of a personal crisis.

 

Pentecost celebrates the reality that we are not meant to be a scattered bunch of self-reliant individuals. Rather, we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to make God’s will our will. With the gifts of the Holy Spirit that include wisdom, piety, understanding, knowledge, and fortitude, we have been transformed so that we can make our broken world aware of God’s healing presence.

 

At baptism, we were clothed, not with a chesterfield coat, but with a white garment. As that was being done, we were told to bring our Christian dignity with the help of our family and friends unstained into the everlasting life of heaven.

 

Likewise, on this Pentecost, we are invited to put on the Spirit just as the disciples did, matching our outer selves with the grace and peace of our inner selves where the love of God dwells. Dare we accept God’s invitation to let the Spirit dwell in our hearts and make a difference in our lives? 

His name was Josef Shultz. He was a German soldier on duty in Yugoslavia during the Second World War. One day he heard his name called out along with seven others. The soldiers hitched their rifles, assuming they were going out on another routine patrol. They were led to a hilltop where they found eight Yugoslavians, standing there, three women and five men. When the soldiers were about fifty feet away, they realized what their mission would be.

 

After they had lined up, their sergeant barked out, “Ready!” and they lifted their rifles. “Aim,” and they got their sights. Suddenly in the silence that followed, there was the thud of a rifle falling on the ground. Everyone stopped and watched as Private Shultz then walked toward the Yugoslavians. His sergeant called him back but he pretended not to hear him.

 

Instead, he walked to the mound of the hill where he joined hands with the eight Yugoslavians. There was a moment of silence, then the sergeant yelled, “Fire!” and Private Shultz died, his blood mingled with that of the innocent women and men. Found on his body was an excerpt from St. Paul that read, “Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.”

 

That is quite a command Jesus gives us in today’s gospel. “Love one another as I have loved you.” He then adds, “No one has a greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

 

Even so, the thought of doing what Private Shultz did may seem so unreal to us. As one husband observed, “I can hardly lay down my newspaper to listen to my wife. How am I supposed to lay down my life for someone?” Yet, Jesus isn’t imposing an impossible mission on us.

 

Granted, not everyone is loveable nor are we always in a loving mood. While very few of us will ever have to literally lay down our lives, all of us are being called to love one another through smaller deaths to ourselves. This we do when we put aside our preoccupations for someone else like the parent giving undivided attention to a child. We die to ourselves through common acts of courtesy when we let someone go ahead of us in line, listen to someone pour out their troubles, or when we do a favor for our neighbor.

 

Jesus tells us that we demonstrate our love for him when we keep his commandments. To him, love isn’t a matter of affection but of action. Don’t think of the commandments as a list of do’s and don’ts that restrict your freedom. Instead see them as avenues for demonstrating your love. Compare them to the little signs lovers do for one another, like the husband who buys flowers for his wife on special occasions or the wife who surprises her husband with his favorite meal.

 

Love is a matter of giving. Not only of self-giving, as Private Shultz demonstrated on that Yugoslavian hillside, but also of forgiving.

 

Being human, we sin against one another and against God. In doing so, we hurt one another, even members of our family. For that reason, we must be willing to forgive, not just once, but many times over. Unless we are willing to forgive when the need arises, we cannot expect our love to survive, much less thrive.

 

A couple in Australia found themselves in a heated argument one day. Suddenly the husband broke through the tension, walked over to his wife, tapped her gently on the arm and said, “Hey, tell me something. Tell me something.”

 

Reluctantly, his wife’s snarl relaxed into a half smile before she volunteered her half of the equation. “I love you,” she said and they embraced. That little exchange, repeated many times during their 40 years of marriage symbolized for them a powerful decision that no issue was so big that they would allow it to come between their love for each other.

 

Could you say the same about your marriage? Are there issues that keep you apart from God and one another? Issues that threaten the bond of love that joins you together as a family or us as a faith community? Forgiving others isn’t always easy, yet that is the promise we make in the Lord’s Prayer whenever we ask God to forgive us.  Is our pride so big or so important that we are willing to risk the loss of love that sustains us or the loss of God’s forgiveness?

 

Love is also a matter of thanksgiving. Love is the one thing all of us are able to give God, and we do so when we gather here for worship. When we have nothing else to give to God, at least we can still give thanks to show that the love we have received is indeed very much appreciated.

 

“This command I give you: love one another.” Notice, it isn’t a suggestion; it’s a command. Love one another. There are no qualifications, conditions, or limitations.

 

Love one another…even the mean-spirited, the grouchy, the ungrateful, the unreasonable. Jesus didn’t give us an impossible mission for each time we seek to be self-giving, forgiving, and full of thanksgiving, we are fulfilling this mission entrusted to us.

Jesus’ parable of the vine and the branches is a very fitting one for Mothers’ Day. The relationship of a mother and her unborn child is one of total dependence. Even after birth, a child remains dependent on mom for nourishment, care, shelter, and education. That is a bond we can all relate to.

 

With this parable, Jesus is telling us of another essential bond in our lives. “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.”

 

As baptized Christians, we have a bond with Jesus that is even more intimate than a mother has with her child. Just as a mother nourishes the child in her womb with her blood, Jesus nourishes us with his body and blood every time we receive Holy Communion in a state of grace.

 

This sacrament connects us with Jesus, giving us the potential to deepen our faith and our spiritual well-being. As Jesus points out, this bond enables us to bear much fruit. He cautions us that if we separate ourselves from him, we will wither and die much like a branch does when it is snipped.

 

On a recent ferry that I barely got on, I ran into a parent I hadn’t seen in awhile. I told him that his presence at Mass was missed. I could sense that he was struggling to justify his absence.  Our conversation was cut short before I had the chance to raise the question, “Would life be so difficult if you hadn’t fallen away from practicing your faith?”

 

I wonder if he and anyone else who has quit coming to Mass have given much thought to that line in the gospel that I don’t like to contemplate. “Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.” 

 

It is easy for us to downplay the importance of Jesus and the sacraments in our lives, not realizing the harm we do to our spiritual well-being and our relationships with others. A good analogy would be our need to exercise often if we want to keep in shape. Failing to do so can cause us to gradually gain weight and develop a life-threatening illness.

 

Jesus’ intent in sharing this parable isn’t to provide us with a lesson in gardening.  Rather, he is telling us how to keep our faith well. Just as a branch can’t survive on its own apart from the vine, our faith can’t survive apart from Jesus. To keep our faith strong, we must remain in him.

 

So, how do we stay connected to the vine that is Jesus? We do it by giving priority to actively participating in the life of the church. That could mean doing some pruning in our lives. A relevant question we should ponder is, “What things in my life could be cutting me off from God?” One example that comes to mind is the woman who always prayed her rosary while watching TV. She said her prayers all right, but was she really praying? Where was her mind as she said “Hail Mary”? Any prayer is better than none but if we want our faith to become vibrant, we need to give God our undivided attention.  Like Jesus said, apart from him, we cannot thrive.

 

Some branches in our lives that we may need to prune include bigotry, materialism, selfishness, prejudice, and apathy. They prevent us from loving others in deed and in truth as John urges us to in his letter. The same could be said of those self-centered addictions in our lives like alcohol and gambling that distance us from God and others.

 

Because the notion of pruning hurts, both figuratively and literally, few of us are eager to do much trimming in our lives. Consequently, we find ourselves sprouting branches all over the place that give little direction to our lives or depth to our faith.  Like the tree that hasn’t been pruned, we have plenty of branches that bear little fruit. With all the distractions and priorities that fill our lives, we risk overlooking the wisdom of this gospel; “Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.”

 

If you ever find your spirituality drooping with little zest, then you need to cut back on those things that are keeping you away from God. Blow the dust off the family bible and read it. I assure you that a half hour spent reading the bible is a better investment of your time than nearly any show on TV would be. It takes more than just coming to weekly Mass to deepen your relationship with God.  I am convinced that the less one prays during the week, the more likely one will be tempted to skip Mass and Holy Communion. Sooner or later, you cut yourself off from the vine, becoming a member of that religion known as the fallen away Christian.

 

The quality of our faith and the fruit our faith bears depends on our willingness to let Jesus impact us through prayer, the sacraments, scripture, and his moral teachings.   

 

Just as any mother would likely say to her child, “Clean your room,” Jesus is telling us to clean our lives of whatever it is that is keeping us apart from him. Look at your branches and ask yourself, “Do they help me to grow in my relationship with God or do they keep me apart from God?” Cutting away our lifeless branches may hurt but doing that will bless us with the rich harvest of a more vibrant and life giving faith.

She had no idea and said, “I give up. What do they call the nut that holds it all together?” Her son smiled and replied, “They call it the Jesus nut.” An interesting and sensible name, if you ask me. Just as that nut holds the helicopter together, Jesus by his death and resurrection holds us together. That is the underlying message I find throughout these readings. Jesus is the one who holds everything together. He is compared to the cornerstone of a building and in today’s gospel; we hear the familiar image of the good shepherd who keeps his flock together.

 

We could easily limit our attention to that image and forget the rest of the story. A Jesus nut may keep a helicopter together but it doesn’t get the helicopter off the ground. Every component in the helicopter from the rotors to the motor plays a role in getting the helicopter airborne. A cornerstone keeps a building from collapsing but it doesn’t make up the entire building. Every beam matters in the construction of any building. Likewise, you and I are crucial to the vitality of the Catholic Church in Western Washington.

 

One might wonder why Jesus would choose such a lowly job for a self-image, calling himself the “good shepherd,” especially when we think of sheep as being dumb animals. Comparing us to sheep doesn’t seem so flattering but then this vulnerable animal develops a fierce loyalty and this is the quality Jesus is looking for in his disciples. Jesus expects us to be as loyal to him as a sheep would be to its shepherd.  Also, good shepherds would die while protecting their sheep.

 

As a parish community, we demonstrate our loyalty through action in any number of ways; feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, caring about the homeless, welcoming newcomers, and comforting the grieving. And what we cannot do individually or as a parish is done by the services and ministries of the Archdiocese. 

 

The Annual Catholic Appeal supports 63 ministries in Western Washington from Blaine to Camas and from Westport to Concrete. I invite you during this Easter season to show your loyalty and love in deed and in truth just as Jesus showed his love for us on the cross. Participating in the Annual Catholic Appeal is one deed we can all do.

 

I presume you received this brochure from Archbishop Brunett, which outlines a few of the many programs supported by the Annual Catholic Appeal. As you may have heard already, the goal this year is to raise $ 1 million. Our parish goal is $ 29,313. Last year 46% of our families participated with an average pledge of $275, enabling us to surpass our goal by more than $21,000.  The money we received back is now being spent on renovating the church with a new roof and new carpeting.

 

I join Archbishop Brunett in asking you to prayerfully consider how you can support the larger church this year. I hope you can respond with the same generosity that was demonstrated last year. I know this parish will generously exceed its goal; what you might not realize is how crucial the rebate we get back will be for our parish in the coming year. That money has been earmarked for putting new siding on the church and for a new sound system.

 

Everyone’s participation is valued. If you haven’t given in the past to the Annual Catholic Appeal, I am asking you as a member of this parish to join others who have participated by making some pledge as a sign that you do see yourself as a vital member of the Catholic Church. A gift of any size will be valued by those whom the Appeal benefits.

 

In this land of ours, where we take religious freedom for granted, I doubt that we will ever be called to lay down our lives as the good shepherd did for us, but we can honestly consider our willingness to sacrifice something in order to help the larger church reach out in its much needed ministries from educating tomorrow’s priests to visiting the imprisoned, from supporting our retired nuns and priests to visiting the sick in our hospitals, from supporting our youth camps to training tomorrow’s deacons.

 

Last weekend a few families made their pledges. I hope the rest of you are ready to make your commitment today by filling out a pledge envelope, even if you are visiting from another parish. I will give you a few moments to fill out an envelope. You need not put any money in it at this time. There are four ways you can make a pledge as noted on the envelope; cash or check, electronic funds transfer, ask for a monthly statement from the diocese, or use a credit card. When you are done, please place your pledge envelope in the collection basket when it comes to you.

 

On behalf of the Archbishop and the many people who are served by the Church of Western Washington, thank you for all you do and share as loyal disciples of Jesus Christ. May God bless you abundantly and may we continue to follow the good shepherd all the days of our lives. 

Although they had walked a fair distance with him, talking about what had happened on Good Friday; it wasn’t until he broke bread with them that they recognized him.

I can imagine how they felt when the blinders came off and everything he had said made sense. “Were not our hearts burning while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” That prompted them to walk back to Jerusalem to share their experience with the other disciples to the scene we found in this gospel where again Jesus opened their minds to understanding the scriptures.

 

Having a mental block isn’t that uncommon for any of us. I recall years ago while putting together a prayer book in sign language for deaf children, I wondered how to convey that line from the Apostles ’ Creed, “the communion of saints.” All the time I had said that prayer while growing up, I imagine the saints receiving Holy Communion. Needless to say, I was beet red when a priest explained to me that it meant “community of saints.”

 

Duh, no wonder we refer to Eucharist as Holy Communion.  Partaking of the Eucharist is a public testimony that we belong to the Catholic community and that we believe in what the Catholic faith stands for.  We all matter when it comes to doing the work of Christ, from gathering here to worship to proclaiming the gospel each in our own way for not one of us in the sight of God is unimportant.  We depend on the Church and the Church depends on us to make real the message of Jesus Christ.   One way we can do that is through the Annual Catholic Appeal, which provides us with the opportunity to put our gifts at the service of others.