Homilies

What tree did Adam eat from? Certainly not an apple tree! God gave Adam permission to eat from any tree in the garden but one. “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” God cautioned, “for when you do, you shall die.” The serpent tricked Eve into eating from that tree, telling her, “God knows your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Indeed her eyes and Adam’s eyes were opened and they became aware of conscience, that awareness or knowledge we humans have, unlike other animals, of right and wrong; the faculty to decide on the morality of our actions, ideally with a compulsion to do what is right.

To form our conscience, we have to first learn to distinguish the good from the bad and develop sensitivity to human values, which we gain from the world around us, including family, peers, church, culture, and society. Ideally, this results in an informed conscience, which varies from person to person, depending on one’s sensitivity to certain values.

Alas, not every conscience is well informed. If I grow up in a bigoted family and a bigoted culture, it would be difficult for me to see beyond these bigotries and realize that my conscience is not fully informed. The formation of one’s conscience is a life long undertaking that can prompt us to continually reevaluate certain moral values.

A person may be convinced that his or her actions are good when in fact they are not. In a world of moral ambiguity, this will not be uncommon. Consider what happened in Germany during the 1930’s. An erroneous conscience, however, is not to be confused with a lax conscience, which exerts no effort in striving to know the truth of what is right and what is wrong. The lax conscience allows a person to become complacent. A healthy conscience that enables us to discern right and wrong is based not on hunch, opinion or cultural conditioning but on transcendent values such as love, justice, integrity, human dignity and compassion.

Now that their eyes were opened, they were filled with guilt, so Adam and Eve hid from God to escape responsibility for what they had done. Along with conscience, they became aware of shame, the emotion we experience when we have done something wrong. To this day, the devil continues to dupe us with luring temptations to sin and become ashamed for what we did or failed to do.

Feeling guilty doesn’t always mean that we have done something wrong or evil. A common example would be feeling guilty for missing Sunday Mass even though one was sick in bed. On the other hand, some people don’t feel guilty about holding certain racial or sexual views even though the values they are adhering to are morally wrong.

Despite the scribes’ ludicrous claim, Satan cannot drive out Satan. To drive out Satan, we need a well-informed conscience, which enables us to see the wisdom behind the moral teachings of our church that our culture often ignores.

The devil works overtime, persuading us to downplay the harm or the consequences of passing over certain moral values such as abortion, capital punishment, racism, consensual sex outside of marriage, and a host of other social issues. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “What’s in a name? That which we call sin by any other name would still be sin!” As we all know, sin is an offense against the will of God. Even if we put the blame on someone else like Adam did, committing a sin is still our doing.

When we sin, a healthy conscience prompts us to feel guilty and like Adam, we want to hide from God but there is no reason to do so. As we sung moments ago, “With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption.” God loves us unconditionally and is willing to forgive but first we have to seek God’s forgiveness. The unforgiveable sin that Jesus speaks of occurs when we refuse to seek forgiveness.

Guilt makes us mindful that we have hurt someone; this prompts us to run back to the merciful arms of our forgiving God and seek to be reconciled with God and those whom we have hurt. Guilt can also motivate us to work at not sinning. A great deal of the sinfulness of our society has to do with the fact that we do not first consider the damage and harm we do whenever we sin.

Don’t limit conscience to how you feel after committing a certain act. Consider conscience as a tool that God has given you for reflection before you act. It is the quintessence of human morality that we should do what we believe to be right and avoid what we believe to be wrong.

To have a well-informed conscience, we can and we must grow in the knowledge and understanding of the Ten Commandments, our faith traditions, doctrines, beliefs, practices, and moral principles. Even the Church knows that, changing its views in certain areas, such as slavery and capital punishment, over time.

To decide between what is good and evil is perhaps the oldest struggle in human history yet making an honest effort to do so with a well-informed conscience is to do the will of God. And whoever does the will of God is recognized by Jesus as his brother and sister.

“This is my body. This is my blood.” We hear this at every mass whether you are here at St. Hubert in Langley or you are in Nigeria. It is the same body same blood offered to us by God through his Son, Jesus Christ.

The Eucharistic feast is one that most Catholics struggle with because our words come short in explaining this gift of Jesus’s body and blood, this human yet divine gift offered to us by God. It is what we need to be in union with, to have a relationship with Jesus Christ who by God’s love for us, suffered on a wooden cross, crucified for us and died for us.

Yet we still struggle with this doctrine of our faith, this Eucharist which is the reason we are here or at least it should be the main reason we are here at mass! Jesus said, “This is my Body, This is my Blood.”

If God can become man, If Jesus can be truly God and truly man, then surely Jesus can give us Himself as a present reality in the Holy Mass. Always we are brought to this point: Do I believe that God has taken on our humanity and become one of us in the person of Jesus Christ, becoming flesh and blood?

The first reading today from Exodus speaks about blood and the pouring and sprinkling of the altar and the people. Our ancestors saw blood as a sign of life, as a way of commitment as a way of bonding.

The second reading today from the Letter to the Hebrews points out the obvious: human blood or blood of animals is only temporary. The blood of Christ, however is forever. Jesus is God and man and His sacrifice of His own life for us carries eternal and complete consequences for all of us.

The gospel today from Mark gives the account of the Last Supper and the words of Jesus; “This is my Body! This is my Blood.” And as I said at the beginning is said during every mass around the world.

So, I Have always wanted to see the upper room. I have always wanted to see the places where Jesus was present. That brings to mind a short story I read while I was discerning what to say in this homily.

An American priest named Fr. Frank Ramsberger was touring the Holy Land. He especially wanted to study the places where Jesus lived, worked, suffered, died and rose from the dead. He became good friends with a young boy Named Josef, the brown faced son of an Arab shepherd. The boy served at Fr. Frank’s masses and taught Fr. Frank some of the difficult Arabic words.

As the priest was about to leave for other parts of the Holy Land, he told Josef: “Not many boys and girls have the privilege of living in the land where Jesus lived. You know that God’s Son, as a boy and as a man, walked these roads and breathed this air. Doesn’t that help you to love him more?”

Josef gave this very thoughtful answer; “You don’t have to live here to love the Lord, because now He lives in every part of the world. Every land now is the Holy Land. Wherever we are, we are in the land of Jesus.”

Have you ever thought of this; that Langley or where you live is part of the Holy Land? Jesus lives right here, right now and He presents Himself to us here in the Eucharist, through His body and blood.

This is what we think of on this feast of His Body and Blood, formally called Corpus Christi, when we recall that Holy Thursday when Jesus first spoke the words, “This is my Body! This is my Blood.”

This right here is the Holy Land. Langley is the Holy Land. This is Bethlehem; Jesus is born right here in every Holy Mass. This is Nazareth; Jesus grows up right here in our lives. Jesus works miracles right here; spiritual miracles.

He heals us of the leprosy of sin. He heals spiritual cripples so they can walk in His ways. He gives sight to those who cannot see the things of the Spirit. Christ forgives sins right here in that confessional.

This is Cana. Jesus is present in every marriage in our church. He attended funerals in His homeland. He is right here when we bury our beloved dead. This is the temple at Jerusalem. Christ teaches right here through his priests, deacons, through his religious Ed teachers and coordinators, and through the parents of His children.

Jesus was present in the villages, churches, streets, fields, lakes and hills and in homes in the Holy Land. He is present in our homes as well and wherever we go.

However, the most important place where He lives in the present, once received at mass, is in us.

During my formation to become a deacon in 2006, we received an assignment that I feel fits this most Holy celebration. We were tasked with imagining ourselves in that upper room when Jesus appeared to his

Apostles. How would we feel, what would we realize? This is what I came up with.

“I am in the upper room. I am dressed in a burlap garment. Beads of sweat slowly cascade down my face only to meet my sandaled and dusty feet. Every step I take dust from the floor of bamboo woven reeds fog them. I am pacing, wondering what to do next. The room is dark with only gray and black images. The darkened images represent uncertainty, loneliness, fear, abandonment.

Suddenly Jesus appears! The once darkened images become bright and full of color. I see Jesus’ hands and feet, the nail holes that are the remnant of His suffering for my sins. I feel ashamed and a tear traverses down my cheek only to be caught by Him. The uncertainty is now belief, the loneliness now joy, the fear is now hope, and the abandonment is now forgiveness, mercy and love.”

Today, most of you will receive the body and blood of Jesus come down from heaven for us. Let us choose to become what we consume. When we come to receive Him, let Him hear you proclaim it by saying a resounding Amen! By some responses, one has to wonder if there might be a thought of “am I going to miss the start of the game”, or what am I going to prepare for dinner tonight, or where am I going to play today or am I going to play on my electronic games?

Don’t be complacent. What would have happened if Jesus was complacent? Think about t.

This Feast is not just a ritual on our church calendar, This Feast is an invitation to encounter the real presence of Jesus Christ not just on the altar but also in our hearts, minds and souls. Then we will have accepted this most holy gift in us, Jesus’ divine presence to give strength to offer Him to a world waiting to be born anew.

On this Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, let us ask the Lord to come and take up residence within us. Let us receive, adore, and become Eucharist for others!

Today, we honor God for who God is for without God, we simply would not be. The feast of the Trinity celebrates the mystery that this God whom we believe in has three persons, whom Jesus identifies in this Gospel passage as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Since the Trinity cannot be fully understood, we use symbols, such as shamrocks and triangles, to describe this mystery of who God is. While symbols may help us to see how three can be one, they fall short of conveying the real lesson here. One sensible way to understand the Trinity would be to use human comparisons.

A classic icon painted by Andrei Rublev, a 15thcentury Russian monk, presents the Trinity as three angels sitting at a table. Here we find the three persons of the Trinity in a harmonious and interdependent relationship with one another. This image suggests that we think of the Trinity as a committee!

Perhaps such a metaphor sounds shocking yet picture these three persons sitting at the table, discussing the feasibility of creation, the time and place for redemptive intervention, and the best way to keep in touch with the human community. That could be a sensible way of imagining the ongoing relationship amongst the three persons of the Trinity.

Moses asked, “Did anything so great ever happen before?” As wonderful as God’s great deeds are, we can never forget that our God is a very personal one who, as the gospel notes, is with us always. God is not solitary and aloof like the pagan gods. Nor is God capricious or immoral like the Greek gods. No, the Trinity tells us that God is the epitome of a loving relationship. The Father is the lover, the Son is the beloved, and the Spirit is the love that unites them. Since we are made in the image of God, it is no wonder then, that we are most divine, most happy, most fulfilled, when we too are in a loving relationship.

Consciously or unconsciously, we rely on role models, such as our parents and peers, to become who we are. With the Trinity, God provides another crucial role model to show us the value and importance of relationships in our lives. God is who God is because the three persons of the Trinity are in an intimate relationship with one another.

The mystery of the Trinity communicates that God is a family so closely united that although they are three persons, they are one God. But this God does not act alone, otherwise, he would cease to exist. There is nothing Christian about the individualist who needs nobody else and is concerned about nobody else, just as there can be no family if its members don’t care about one another. In much the same way, the three persons of the Trinity cannot be separated from one another. They complement each other. The father cannot be one unless he has a son and the two, father and son, are drawn together by the Spirit.

Just as God cannot exist alone, we cannot survive alone. To be whole, we need relationships in our lives. Think of the most satisfying moments in your life. I am certain that these moments were savored with someone else. When you were held, when you were hugged, when you were affirmed, when you were loved, when you were in the silent presence of someone who cared about you. Our hearts are made for one another and for God.

Now think of the worst moments in your life. When you felt rejected, when you were abandoned, when your marriage or a close friendship ended, when you ached for a hug but none was forthcoming, or when you were betrayed. Rejection is such an intolerable hurt because we desperately need to be connected.

When I was a teenager, I never once thought that a gun would ever be found in a classmate’s locker. Now you wonder if a gun is as a common on campus as yesterday’s uneaten lunch. I wager that the common motive behind many recent school shootings has been that shooters isolate themselves from family and potential friends.

Do you get the point? If God can’t survive alone, neither can we. Every reaching out to others, every urge to embrace, every act of love gives witness to the Trinity. We imitate God most when we are in love, give love, and receive love. As St. Augustine once said, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.”

No wonder then that Jesus gives the command for his followers to go and baptize others in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, inviting them to feel God’s presence. Since love is the message of the Good News, love is also the model for us to use. The Trinity is an expression of who we are called to be, people of love, followers of Christ, interacting with one another, and always mindful that, like the Trinity, all creation is linked together and interdependent on one another.

This means being alert to the common good rather than the solo pursuit of private gain; cooperating with one another rather than competing, mindful as Paul tells us that we are children of God, blessed with an awesome Father whose love for all creation is unconditional and forever, redeemed by his son who opened the way for us to live forever and empowered by his advocate, the Holy Spirit, to keep his commandments as our response to God’s love.

 

From time to time we sing a song that I learned while in college in which we proclaim that others will know we are Christians by our love. That song speaks of our mission, given to us by Jesus in today’s gospel, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” Jesus then added, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.”

Through his teachings, Jesus provides the way for us to live an enriched and happier life. Newspaper headlines often implythat many people are not hearing the good news that life can truly be better for their lives do not depict happiness or fulfillment. We heard Jesus caution that a bleaker fate awaits those who do not believe. Imagine how different the world would be if more people believed the message of the gospel. Conversely, imagine how different our world would be had people like Thomas Merton, Martin Luther King, and Pope Francis heard, then decided not to believe the Good News.

Two topics that few people care to discuss freely with one another are religion and politics. They hesitate to share the Good News because they don’t want to come across as being “preachy.” Fortunately, not every Christian has been so quiet. Otherwise, we would not be here. We are who we are because someone, most likely our mothers, touched us in the past with her or his faith in Jesus Christ.

Freed from the time and place of biblical Palestine by the Ascension, Jesus works through us to attract others to himself. People do not become Christians through the words of Christianity. They become Christians through the presence of Christ. We must not allow anything to destroy the presence of Christ within us. We cannot give ourselves over to the forces of evil that wage war on the Lord. And yet so many people have done that perhaps unintentionally.

Many Christians could be labeled as “practical atheists,” a term Pope Benedict uses to describe those whose belief in God is superficial and live as though God does not exist. When they make decisions, even moral ones, the thought of God is absent from their considerations. They view Christianity merely as a set of beliefs and morals instead of God’s self-revelation in history so that he could have a loving relationship with his creatures. Christianity is the experience of love, of welcoming the person of Jesus Christ.

How often do you consider your faith and its values in your decision-making when you leave here? We may not care to be Bible thumping preachers but there is much we can do beyond the doors of our church by visibly being a witness to Jesus and his Good News. The world needs the ordinary, day-to-day witness of men, women and children who are doing their daily best to live by the principles and priorities of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus says in today’s first reading, “you will be my witnesses,” he wasn’t talking just to the apostles. He really means you and you and you and me. He means all of us. He is calling on us to follow in the footsteps of the disciples and be his personal witnesses “to the ends of the earth.”

So why do we hesitate to share the message of today’s readings with our loved ones, with those whom we work with, our friends and neighbors? Is it because we haven’t come to fully appreciate the Good News ourselves?

As any good teacher knows, we truly learn a subject when we teach it. For that reason, Jesus calls on us to go out and proclaim the good news. How else are we going to learn what he is trying to teach us unless we in turn try to teach it ourselves? If you need a refresher course, read the scriptures, check out the catechism, make use of the Word Among Us,or read the book, Rediscover Jesus.

The gospel points out that when we accept our baptism and preach our faith, great things will happen, namely a better world free of despair. When Jesus spoke of serpents and deadly things, he wasn’t speaking literally, assuring us that anything poisonous wouldn’t harm us. Rather he is conveying the message that his people could fight and conquer evil in its worst forms. Jesus used snakes to signify the devil and poison to represent the evils of the world, including the poisons of hatred, prejudice, racism, drug addiction, and materialism. He is saying that with his help we would be able to confront the poisons of the world.

By ascending to heaven, Jesus removes his physical presence from our midst, so that he could be present at all times everywhere to all peoples. Jesus is now present to others through us, his followers. We no longer see him with our eyes but we could see his presence in people whom he inspires. We cannot hear him literally but his words speak volumes to us of God’s unconditional love. Despite knowing that he always showers us with love, our world tends to ignore his presence most of the time for we still have children starving, refugees seeking safe havens, and nations obsessed with war.

While none of us look forward to suffering for being a Christian, let us be mindful that we have the promise of the Spirit, the source of our courage and the encouraging words of Jesus, “Know that I am with you always until the end of the age,” as we go forth from here to be his witnesses to others by our patience, joy, acts of kindness, concern for others, and our readiness to forgive.

The one idea that I pondered after reading the scripture for this weekend is the love I have for my wife of almost 44 years. I would like to think that this love will last forever, even in the new life to come. That is a very strong love. We live in this hope for each other but the real and most important hope is that of being with the Father in his kingdom forever.

How much more is the love of the Father for his children, you and me? His love is an eternal love which one day in that hope, will be shared with us in his kingdom of heaven. This love is a total receiving and sharing of that love.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Heaven is the eternal life with God; communion of life and love with the Trinity and all the blessed.” Paragraph #1023.

God shows us the way to this total receiving and giving of love through his son, Jesus Christ, who is love itself sent down from heaven to claim us as the Father’s children who now have the way to the Father through the Son.

To get to heaven what do we have to do? Jesus tells us in today’s gospel: “As the Father loves Me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love just as I have kept the Father’s commandments and remain in His love.”

As we feed off our spouses love, how much more do we love by receiving Jesus in the sacrament of Communion? How much more strength do we receive to follow the Commandments especially loving one another? Jesus says, “Love one another as I love you.”

The gospel today is a familiar section from the “Last Discourse” of Jesus to his disciples. In these five chapters, thirteen through seventeen, John presents Jesus as the loving teacher reminding his students of all that he has tried to teach them and us, and what will be on the final exam. He warns them also about the dangers and traps which they will encounter on their way to that exam.

There are some elements of the Ten Commandments, The Sermon on the Mount, and some beautiful images of who Jesus says he is and who the disciples are to be. That includes all of us!

What we hear today is a simple straight forward command, which if followed is the same love as Jesus has for the Father. Jesus tells them and us that he has loved them as deeply and intimately as the Father has loved him. “Love one another as I have loved you!”

If we truly believe who we are, friend and chosen, if we take our name of who we are seriously, then the actions of loving will follow. You cannot love Jesus and not love one another. Jesus tells his disciples and ourselves that, “you are a part of Me, as vine, you are known, loved, and chosen to be fruitful.”

You know we do not hear enough about the saints, someone said to me one day. And she is right. So what do some of the saints say about Love: St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta said: “We can cure physical diseases with medicine but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is Love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more who are dying for a little love. Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough. Money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So spread love wherever you go.”

St. John Paul ll said, “There is no place for selfishness-and no place for fear. Do not be afraid then, when love makes demands. Do not be afraid when Love requires sacrifice.”

And another from St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta who said, “Intense love do not measure-it just gives.”

And finally St. Augustine of Hippo who sad, “What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrow of men. That is what love looks like.”

God so loves us that he sent his only begotten Son who is the fullest expression of God’s love, as the expiation for our sins. Would you suffer for God’s love, to defend God’s love in Jesus Christ? If we are willing to do that then we have the power through the Holy Spirit to go out to love one another without fear, without reservation.

You see, we can love one another, even our enemies, if we truly give ourselves to God through Jesus Christ freely out of our love for Him. We act because we love, not to earn our way to heaven. Jesus acted because of his love for us. Love one another. Simple.

If we love Jesus Christ, if we open ourselves to see Jesus in others, the lame, the thirsty, the homeless, the sick, the dying, all the marginalized of our society, then we are following the Commandment to love one another by offering our help and assistance.

When we open ourselves to see Jesus, to feel this love, we will see them and don’t be surprised if they are your neighbor, in our church, in our community, in our own back yards. They are there. Love one another.

Two weeks ago Jesus told his disciples about the “Shepherd” laying down his life for his friends. Love is not always felt but is expressed in deeds especially the generous surrendering of greed, envy, demands, expectations.

Always this loving is easier to talk about then to execute. It begins with being loved as a gift and not something earned. The disciples were asked to receive their being loved by Jesus as the Father loves Him. Remaining in that love will result in remaining as “sent” and “Loved” sacraments and is our final test.

Many books have been written about love and how to be loved and how to express that love. Each of us is writing our own book by how we lay down our lives for our sisters and brothers. Each of us is writing our own book by living in that love of Jesus Christ or choosing not to.

Our own books have become a reflection of what is in this book called the Holy Bible. Where does your book fit in it?