Homilies

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.

Parables are timeless tools Jesus used to get his message across. Full of violence, the remarkable instructive parable in this gospel is timely. Alas, violence colors the world we live in. Nations, peoples, individuals, even kids, routinely hurt, maim, and kill. In this graphic manner, Jesus cautions that the kingdom of God will be taken away from those who have no respect for the Son of God and given to those who will produce “fruit.”

Historically, our world has often been divided between “us” and “them.” In the parable, we had the tenants and the servants. Now “us and them” could be described as blacks and whites, Muslims and Jews, gays and straights, the haves and have-nots, to name but a few. One doesn’t have to go far to find division. Even within our minds, we have a tug of war going on. Our “tenants” are our beliefs, habits, and attitudes that dupe us into rejecting the call of the servants, our modern day prophets, who urge us to respect the Son of God and his message to love God and one another. The tenants’ final act of defiance in killing the son alludes to our personal rejection of Christ, which happens whenever we choose not to respect life from conception to natural death.

When we are influenced more by the secularism of our culture than the teachings of our Church, we choose not to see certain acts that others or we commit as being immoral or wrong. Instead, we rationalize that certain sinful acts and values are harmless, when in fact, they are not.

Every sin causes harm and hurt.  History is full of examples where we have chosen not to respect life. Genocidal slaughter based on ethnic or religious differences have devastated many societies and nations, including ours. But the destruction doesn’t end there. We must not ignore the cold-blooded killings of gang wars, terminally ill patients committing suicide with the help of doctors, prisoners who have been tortured or executed, fetuses destroyed by abortion or infanticide, or addictive behaviors like pornography that undermine the dignity of the human person.

Our culture considers these values acceptable. Many who find them offensive and immoral choose to remain silent on the matter or feel that “the choice is a person’s right.”  There is a certain banality about evil. Evil often takes the form of simple conformity to what everyone is doing, and to what our leaders say is right. Such silent assent doesn’t make the evil disappear as one German ruefully observed decades ago, “In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

The immorality, the violence and the legitimized killings are so commonplace that they may seem beyond our control. So, we reason, as did many Germans during the reign of Adolf Hitler, we have neither the power nor the responsibility to change things. Yet Edmund Burke, an English philosopher, once noted that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.

Pope Benedict XVI observed the divisive nature of culture when he visited our country. “The subtle influence of secularism can color the way people allow their faith to influence their behavior. Is it consistent to profess our beliefs in church on Sunday, and then during the week to promote business practices or medical procedures contrary to those beliefs? Is it consistent for practicing Catholics to ignore or exploit the poor and the marginalized, to promote sexual behavior contrary to Catholic moral teaching, or to adopt positions that contradict the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death?”

The obvious answer is no if we want to bring about the kingdom of God in our midst. Saint Pope John Paul II cautioned, “For many people the difference between good and evil is determined by the opinion of the majority…” He added, “The choice in favor of life is not a private option but a basic demand of a just and moral society.” To respect life, there must be a reawakening in our hearts to really know and live the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Such an intimate understanding emerges through daily prayer, study and attentive reflection of the Gospel.  

One of the functions of religion is to make us pay attention to the ultimate issues, the deeper questions, to keep us from being complacent, sometimes to shake us out of our comfortable habits and perspectives, just as Jesus often did with parables.

Like the tenants in today’s parable, we seek to eliminate and destroy that which threatens our economic and physical security, our sense of personal safety, our self-centered, narrow view of the world with which we have grown comfortable. Jesus Christ, our Messiah, comes with a new, transforming vision for our “vineyard,” a vision of love rather than greed, of peace rather than hostility, of forgiveness rather than vengeance.

Jesus told us, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  Any contractor knows that a building without a cornerstone will eventually collapse. Raising his son from the dead, God offers us Jesus as the cornerstone of our faith. If this is what we profess, then he must supplant the false beliefs, habits, and attitudes, which the wicked “tenants” of our secular culture promote.  When we know Jesus and his message, his voice stands out from the rest of the world. May we have the courage and wisdom to dare to “look into the eyes” of Christ, welcoming him into our vineyard, aware that he calls us to a demanding change of heart, determined to bear “fruits” of love by what we say and do.

Today we are treated to one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul begins by telling us to be compassionate and merciful. We are urged to put the interests of others above ourselves.

“Be like Jesus,” Paul tells us. “Serve others. Stop being selfish. See others as more important than yourself.” This is difficult advice to heed because pride is so deeply rooted in each of us. So much of our society pressures us into thinking that the world revolves around our wants and us.

Then Paul tells us about Jesus. He says that we should have the same attitude in life as Jesus had. He was forever God, but he did not regard this as something to be grasped. Instead, Jesus emptied Himself of His Divinity. He became human. Jesus became a slave to serve us. He obeyed His Father for our sake, even when this obedience led to His death on the cross. 

Because of this, God bestowed on Him the name that is above every other name; so “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”              

Today’s readings remind us that we balk at doing so. We have two fundamental choices in life whenever the Lord asks something of us: obedience or rebellion. Rebellion is a choice we make at times, but it is the wrong choice.                                                                         

In today’s First Reading Ezekiel observes that those who blame the Lord for their destructive path and decisions are only fooling themselves. Rebellion is usually egged on by an injustice we have suffered. The countless protests in cities across our country are a testimony to that. Ezekiel debunks any claim that God is unjust in letting the wicked perish and the virtuous live due to their actions. No one can honestly say the Lord hasn’t tried throughout salvation history to dissuade us from taking the wrong path. Ultimately, our decisions are our own. 

In his writings Aristotle defined the most fundamental principle of ethics as “do good and avoid evil.” We’re free to do either, but we’re also responsible for the outcome.

The wicked do evil, and many people suffer the consequences of their evil, not just them. The virtuous do good, and many people benefit from that good. God blessed us with the freedom to do good or evil. He wants us to do good because he knows a virtuous life is a fruitful and beautiful life that brings us to the kingdom of heaven.

God also knows the flipside of freedom: we’re free to blow it and choose evil. God doesn’t want us to do evil, but permits us to do so out of respect for our freedom. God gave us free will because our ability to love cannot exist otherwise.

St. Paul traced a simple path for us to follow: the path Our Lord himself followed. He summarizes it very well: “Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his interests, but also for those of others.”

The parable of the two sons is a classic example of saying that actions speak louder than words. The two sons represent our responses to God’s commands. The tax collectors and prostitutes, portrayed by the first son, had said no to God but in response to John the Baptist’s preaching, they experienced a change of heart. The chief priests and elders, portrayed by the second son, said “yes,” but their actions showed that they didn’t truly change their ways.

Often we hear and respond faithfully to what God is asking of us but at other times, our actions don’t demonstrate what we say. God’s call meanwhile is persistent, always there to prod our conscience, offering his divine word as guidance and calling us to fidelity. Entering the kingdom of heaven depends on being faithful to God’s persistent call and will.

For God to work through us, we have to take on the humility of Christ and empty ourselves for others. A good litmus test for doing that is our willingness to observe the greatest commandment, which calls on us to love our neighbor as ourselves; the corporal works of mercy offer us examples for doing that by caring about others.

Why do we say “yes” and not follow through at times? We do that because the thought of obeying God and denying ourselves provokes inner rebellion. Mankind’s entire history of sin is a history of rebellion, so it’s no surprise that rebellion is deeply rooted in us.

Our Lord gives us a different example: that of a profound obedience to the Father. Obedience is a difficult path, so it is no surprise that we are hesitant to always take it, but this path is the most fulfilling one.

Yes and no are the most powerful words we can say. They make a difference on how our life unfolds. A believer who rebels by saying “yes” to God’s will but doesn’t do it, will get nowhere near God’s kingdom. His lips said “yes,” but his heart said “no.” A believer who says “no” in the midst of rebellion but with a change of heart then obeys, is on his to  way toward entering the kingdom of heaven.

This parable probably irritates you, bringing to mind a common complaint, “Life isn’t fair!” That is certainly how some laborers felt after working all day in the scorching sun. Yes, they were paid what they had agreed to, but they became resentful when those who worked far less received the same pay as they did.

At least they were paid. For centuries, many people literally slaved without any manner of compensation. When the Civil War began in 1861, one in seven Americans was owned by another American. I doubt any of them thought life was fair.

Over 150 years have passed since this nation’s bloodiest war ended. Despite all the efforts and accomplishments of both black and white Americans since then, despite all of our worthy civil rights legislation, and despite the Church’s fierce stance against the sin of racism, America’s original sin continues to raise its ugly head.

The Civil War ended when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant but remnants of the cause of that war still linger. Racism lingers in the jokes we tell, the choices we make, the friends we keep, the places where we live, and the candidates we vote for or against.

The notion of racism continues to be debated in our society today with some even denying that it exists. For many, racism is simply a fact of life. Racism is like a common cold. Everyone is susceptible to this “virus.” The sin of racism brings misery to all.  As embarrassing and controversial as it is, we need to consider racism in light of this gospel.

This parable bothers us because it reaches deep into our souls and into those places where we cry out, “Life isn’t fair!”

The parable takes us back to our childhood when our brothers and sisters seemed to get the bigger piece of the pie, a nicer bike, or a better break than we did.

This parable makes us itch because we are reminded of those times in our lives when we were left without a date, without being picked by a team or chosen by the teacher or the boss. Yes, there are many times in our lives when we wanted to say, “Life isn’t fair!”

Today’s parable makes us squirm because it strikes close to home, reminding us of the times when certain minorities, like African-Americans, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific islanders, and Hispanics seem to get preferential treatment. “It’s just not fair!” On the other hand, many of them would also say, “Life isn’t fair!” The latest issue of Northwest Catholic relates how some of them experienced racism.

That’s why it’s important for us to realize that Jesus told this parable because some good religious people, like the Pharisees and the scribes, complained that they were scandalized when he socialized with sinners in their midst like tax-collectors and prostitutes.

They somehow thought that God favored them for following the law. But Jesus told them, “Not so.” He urged them to rejoice in the fact that all peoples are treated equally by God and are invited to the kingdom, the first as well as the last, the faithful as well as the sinner, old-timers as well as new-timers.

Jesus told his listeners that our faith cannot be measured by our ways but by God’s ways because God is more generous, more loving, more forgiving, and more merciful than our little minds could ever imagine.

In the decades ahead, our nation and church will continue to be challenged by increasing numbers of “minorities” in our society. By the middle of this century, the average US resident will trace his or her ancestry to almost anywhere but white Europe. This will be a different nation and church then.

We can continue to protest, “It’s not fair!” but the gospel encourages us to sing a different tune. In that same issue of Northwest Catholic, Deacon Carl Chilo, the director of multicultural ministries for the Archdiocese, observed, “our faith in Jesus is stronger than the pervasiveness of racism and it can—and will—carry us to the promised land.” He then notes, “Among the many obstacles to overcoming racism is the troubling tendency of many people to deny its very existence, preferring instead to live in blissful ignorance of the daily reality experienced by many people.

“As Catholic Christians, we are called to ongoing conversion. We are called to respect the dignity and equality of all people regardless of differences.” Pope Francis tells us, “We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of every human life.”

In our first reading, God, who is generous and forgiving, reminds us, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.” There is no room in God’s heart for racism and inequality. So long as we ignore God’s ways, the turmoil of racism will persist. Yet when we come to realize that God treats us all equally and decide to do the same, then we come that much closer to making the kingdom of God a reality in our lives. When we treat others fairly, then we can count on God to treat us fairly.