Homilies

This weekend, we celebrate what is traditionally known as “Gaudete” Sunday, a time of joy, anticipation and hope, reminding us that Christmas is near. I imagine many of you are now caught up in the joy of the season, but are our hearts filled with joy of the good news that John proclaims?

The first reading from the book of the prophet Isaiah is a song of joy. We heard, “I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul.” In the responsorial psalm, we heard Mary proclaim, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Paul urges us to rejoice always and pray without ceasing.

This joy is the result of God’s love and care for the human family. God’s unconditional love brings freedom, justice and peace to all, especially the poor, the suffering and the forgotten ones. Yes, rejoicing is the message we hear today.

There once lived an old man in New Guinea who rejoiced in the message we just heard. He made his living by cutting firewood for the local hospital. Everybody called him One Tooth, because his upper jaw contained only one tooth. Besides cutting firewood, One Tooth spent time each day reading the Gospel to patients sitting in the hospital waiting room. Day after day he shared his faith in Jesus with them.

One day, the old man noticed that he was having trouble reading. When the problem persisted, he went to see the doctor who told him, “I have some sad news for you. You are going blind and there is nothing we can do for you.” One Tooth exclaimed, “Oh no! I’m already old. Now I’ll be blind and useless too.”

The next day, One Tooth didn’t show up at the hospital nor did he show up the day after that. He had vanished and no one knew where he was. Later, the doctor learned that One Tooth was living alone in a deserted part of the island. A boy who brought the old man food told the doctor where he was living, so the doctor went to see One Tooth.

“What are you doing here?” the doctor asked. One Tooth replied, “Ever since you told me I was going blind, I’ve been memorizing the most important parts of the gospel. I’ve already memorized Jesus’ birth, several of his miracles and parables, and his death and resurrection. I’ve been repeating these over and over to the boy to make sure I’ve got them right. In about a week, I’ll be back at the hospital again telling the patients about Jesus.”

I couldn’t resist sharing that story for One Tooth personified the opening line from Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly.” That same spirit came upon One Tooth who then felt the call to bring the good news to the patients in the waiting room. He certainly didn’t stifle the spirit. Even in the face of going blind, he did what he could to let the Spirit speak through him to those nearby.

If One Tooth could do that, why not us? Do we share with others the joy that Jesus Christ brings into our lives? Maybe you are thinking, “But isn’t that your job, Father?” Actually, sharing the good news is every Christian’s mission in life.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon you as well as me. We have all been anointed to bring the glad tidings of Jesus to the lowly. Like John the Baptist and One Tooth, we must proclaim God’s word to others by what we say and do.

Advent reminds us that as the Church, we exist, as John did, to be a voice in the world announcing the coming of Jesus. We often forget that. We get bogged down in our own concerns or issues that we might be having with the Church or our parish. But Advent asks us, “As a result, are you forgetting that you are a voice too, perhaps the only voice someone will hear, which announces the coming of Jesus?

The joy of Advent comes from striving to follow the wisdom of Isaiah’s mission. When Isaiah speaks of the lowly, he is speaking of those who are spiritually poor, not those in poverty. We live in one of the most unchurched states in our country, so the odds are, you know someone who has yet to experience the same joy you find in Jesus Christ. Have you ever thought to personally invite that person to discover firsthand the joy of knowing Christ and what it means to you to follow him as a Catholic?

Look around. Some once familiar faces are now missing. Perhaps they have gone south for the winter but if you know they haven’t, why not tell them that you miss their presence? Many who drift away from coming to Mass return because a friend or a relative invited them to come back. Like a youngster gleefully sharing a secret, you are most apt to find yourself rejoicing by sharing the good news of Jesus then by keeping it to yourself.

Some of us are hesitant to do that but we can still find discrete ways to share our faith. For example, many Christmas cards give no hint of whose birthday we are celebrating as they wish us “season’s greetings” or “happy holidays.” With cards that proclaim the good news that Jesus is the reason for the season, we can remind others of the joy, peace and holiness that Christ brings into our lives.

Like John the Baptist and One Tooth, we witness to someone far greater than us. The world will be a brighter place for others if we would dare to share the light of Christ.

Children can say the oddest things at times, can’t they? As a four-year-old boy was helping his father one morning put the decorations on their Christmas tree, he asked him many questions. “Daddy, why are there so many lights? What do all the colors mean? Did you help your daddy when you were big like me?”

As he as sorting out the ornaments, he then asked his father, “Daddy, what does ignore mean?” His father explained, “Ignore means not to pay attention to people when they call you.” Immediately, the little boy said, “I don’t think we should ignore Jesus.”

Puzzled, his father knelt closer to his animated son and replied, “I don’t think we should ignore Jesus either, son. I think we should give Jesus our full attention. Why do you say that we ignore him?” The boy responded, “But Daddy, that’s what the Christmas carol says, ‘O come let us ignore him.’”

As the young father said, ignore means not paying attention to someone, and yet as we look at the world around us, how readily have we ignored what Jesus said so long ago?

In the opening story of his gospel, Mark quotes the prophet, Isaiah, “I send my messenger ahead of you to prepare your way: a herald’s voice in the desert, crying, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, clear him a straight path.’” Mark uses John the Baptist to introduce the star of his gospel, Jesus Christ.

We encounter John as a voice crying out in the desert, calling his listeners to prepare the way of the Lord through repentance. He did this in a manner that caught everyone’s attention. Then and now, one could easily go along with the crowds, believing that socially acceptable behaviors are also morally right. John felt otherwise, so he confronted the people of his times, urging them to take a second look at themselves. They responded by acknowledging their sins and coming forth to be baptized.

We are urged to do the same by going to confession. Doing so will provide the comfort, forgiveness and pardon that we crave whenever we have offended God and others. When we refuse to honestly deal with our sins, we continue to be mastered by sin. In the disguise of many addictions, sin can remain the center of our lives, rather than God.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we should strive to be holy yet why do we feel that becoming holy is a nearly impossible mission in this lifetime? Well, to become holy, we must first admit that we do ignore Jesus at times and sin. So long as we make excuses for our sins, we can’t be holy, any more than hot water can remain hot if we keep adding ice to it.

We can find the path to holiness when we make the time and effort to listen to Jesus. If you have a bible, read it. Use the Word Among Us as a tool to help you develop the practice of reflecting on God’s wisdom. That in turn motivates us to engage in concrete acts of love and mercy. Becoming holy can be challenging especially if our efforts in the past at deepening our relationship with God has been lukewarm. Keep in mind that it is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.

Instead of ignoring Jesus, we must, like Jerusalem’s inhabitants in the gospel, seek to be reconciled with God, repenting our sins, all the laziness and self-indulgences that make our lives a spiritual wasteland. We have to straighten out our lives, so that everything we do will lead us back to him. On Monday, four priests will be on hand to hear confessions, a big step forward in our quest for holiness.

As I look around, I know there are a few things we all have in common. For starters, we are all alive. Beyond breathing, eating, and sleeping, what else do we have in common? I doubt that everyone here is an American citizen, or Catholic, much less a Christian. What we all have in common is that God unconditionally loves us. We are here in response to God’s love. The question that this gospel brings to mind is do we in turn love God, and if so, how?

In this parable, Jesus speaks of some day separating us, “one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Even today in the Holy Land, a shepherd will often herd sheep and goats together but come nightfall, they have to be separated. To be kept warm, Goats need to be sheltered. Sheep, however, do not need to be pampered.

Comparing those being judged with sheep and goats, Jesus proceeds to contrasts the good from the bad, leaving both groups somewhat surprised by the outcome. Nowhere does Jesus speak of evil or sin. Nor is anyone accused of doing anything bad. Rather, the lesson here is about neglect. Those who reach out to the least of his brothers and sisters will be blessed with eternal life while those who neglected them will be sent off to eternal punishment.

The basis of his judgment will be our response to the poor and the needy. Those who sought to meet their needs will be saved. Those who neglected them will be condemned. That may sound rather harsh but how can we claim to love God if we deliberately choose to ignore God? Yet that is where Jesus said that he could be found. “Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

When we go to confession, we admit that we have sinned, but then some will say, “I can’t think of anything I’ve done that is seriously wrong.” Perhaps that is true. Most of us mean well and want to do the right thing, but often we tend to overlook what could be called sins of omission or neglect. Do we ever think to confess the times when we refuse, as did the goats in this parable, to extend a helping hand to those in need or to give of our time, talent, or treasure?

Think back to the gospel parable from last Sunday. Recall how each servant had to account for his use of the talents entrusted to him. Like those servants, God has blessed us with a share of the world’s goods and when the time comes, we will have to explain how we used them. Until then, like the goats, do we insist on pampering ourselves or do we invest our gifts wisely by sharing what we have with those in need of our help?

Even many saints were slow in learning this critical lesson of life. By her own admission, it was only after she had been a nun for twenty years that St. Teresa of Avila experienced a true conversion to Jesus. Thereafter, she spent her energy in serving others, fully aware that, as the parable implies, God is counting on us to build his kingdom. In one of her prayers, she wrote, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he is to look out; Christ’s compassion to the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.”

Jesus is giving us fair warning. The verdict of our judgment is ultimately in our hands. In the cathedral in Lubeck, Germany, there is a plaque that reads, “Thus speaks Christ our Lord to us; you call me master and obey me not; you call me light and see me not; you call me the way and walk me not; you call me the life and live me not; you call me wise and follow me not; you call me fair and love me not; you call me rich and ask me not; you call me eternal and see me not. If I condemn thee, blame me not.”

Each of us will be held personally accountable when we meet Christ at our last judgment. Do our deeds demonstrate the commitment we profess today as Christians to Christ our King? If there is a gap between the ideals we profess and the values we live by, then today would be a good time to recommit ourselves to Christ and his mission. We must take his message to heart and allow him to be our king, not just in name but in fact as well.

Our gospel passage today is full of examples where we can reach out. We can give food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty. The opportunity is always there for us to make a donation to our Outreach program, filling their bins or making a monetary gift to support Good Cheer, our local food bank. We can welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick or the imprisoned, if not in person then by mail. These examples are called the corporal works of mercy.

The only real joy in this world comes from helping others. When we choose not to, then we choose not to love, and so long as we refuse to love, we blind ourselves to God’s unconditional love. As followers of Christ, we are called to make God’s kingdom a reality in whatever place we are and in whatever time we live. God’s reign is brought about by the simple acts of compassion, reconciliation, and justice. Only then can we see the face of Christ in every man, woman and child.

C.S. Lewis once said, “The normal state of humanity is barbarism, just as the normal surface of our planet is salt water.” Our mission is to prove otherwise, namely that the normal state of humanity is love.

I suspect every expectant mother has been told, “The baby will come when the baby decides to come.” When the baby does come, there is no stopping that birth. The same thing can be said about the end of time or the moment we die, whichever comes first.

Should we be afraid to die or the end of time? St. Paul tells the Thessalonians and us that we should be ready for the end, but we shouldn’t be afraid if death catches us off guard for as long as we live in the light of the Lord, we won’t be left in the dark. This is the paramount lesson of these readings.

Since Jesus talks about talents, which in biblical times was an extraordinary amount of money, this parable seems to be a commentary on financial investments but it really isn’t. Like the two that we heard on previous weekends, this parable speaks about the final coming of the Son of Man. Jesus begins by saying that before leaving on a journey, a man entrusted his possessions to his servants.

That man was Jesus. He left us behind when he ascended into heaven. We fit into the parable as one of the servants. Jesus didn’t entrust any sum of money to us but he entrusts us with his wisdom, his teachings, and his blue print for building the kingdom of God in our lifetime. The Church has become what it is today because many believers invested their knowledge of the faith well by sharing its Good News with others. The wisdom and understanding we possess today of our faith and Jesus Christ was passed on to us by our parents, catechists, homilists and many other Christians who influenced us over time. As his followers we are also expected to pass on the good news of our faith to others.

Every day we have many chances to use the talents God has given us. God expects us to use them for the salvation of the world. In the parable Jesus relates that two servants did that well. To both of them, their master said, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” He didn’t compliment the servant who returned the talent he had buried. Instead, that servant was reprimanded for being lazy and fearful.

For Matthew, the profitable servants stand for Christians who heard the message of Jesus, believe in him, and followed his new way of life. The unprofitable servant refers to those Christians who do not follow the way of Christ. Instead, they carelessly disregard the Word of God by their self-seeking and lack of concern for heeding his call to live the faith.

This parable has much to say to us modern American Catholics. For example, it says something to the pragmatic businessman whose work consumes his time and energy so he never questions his own values in relation to those of Jesus Christ. For him, Jesus is neither the meaning of his life nor the goal of his human activity.

This parable is also meant for Catholics who see their faith only in terms of occasionally attending Mass and when convenient, keeping the commandments. They feel no compulsion to live their faith consistently or to deepen their understanding of the faith they profess as Catholics. They fail to see that Jesus will want to know how we use what we have in order to help others also know and serve God.

They are often accused of being “cafeteria Catholics,” that is, selecting only what they like about the faith and ignoring what they don’t like. Actually, we are all “cafeteria Catholics.” Think back to when you last went through a buffet line that offered more than you could consume. You had to be selective. Our Church is like that. But is what we are helping ourselves to as we go through the line and define our notion of being Catholic leaving us with a balanced understanding of our Catholic faith?

We each approach our Catholic faith from different angles, ranging from conservative or traditional to liberal and many stages in between. Some in one camp are quite critical of those in the other without really understanding each side’s point of view. Even Pope Francis has his critics. The odds are, since both sides share the same belief in Jesus Christ, that they share the same viewpoint on relevant issues such as respect life, but are expressing their views differently.

Jesus expects us to do something for the salvation of the world but first we must grow and mature in our faith. We do that by investing time and energy to better understand what being a Catholic is really about. How many of us have tried to better understand the teachings of our Catholic faith since taking religious ed classes while growing up? Those who haven’t may not be looking at our faith with an adult mindset.

My friends, this parable is a wake-up call! Jesus expects us to use our talents and minds to build up the kingdom of God. This we are motivated to do when we better understand the message he left behind that has been passed on to us by the traditions and teachings of our Church. Otherwise, we may be afraid to share the good news out of ignorance.

To the degree that we use our talents in ways that are humanly and spiritually profitable, Jesus will reward us. We come here each week to study his message and model our lives on his example, along with being nurtured by him in the Eucharist. As long as we strive to use our talents to love, teach, pray and serve, Jesus will judge us kindly at the end of time with compassion and generosity, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come share your master’s joy.”

How wise are we? That question comes to mind as I pondered these readings. “Resplendent and unfading is wisdom, and she is readily perceived by those who love her.” If we consider ourselves wise, then hopefully we are prepared for any unforeseen circumstance that could end our lives. Too often we are reminded that events beyond our control do happen: devastating earthquakes, raging forest fires, torrential downpours resulting in unanticipated floods, auto accidents, strokes, heart attacks, or a shooting spree can snuff the life out of us on a moment’s notice.

Like many in their day, Jesus and his disciples believed that the world would soon end. Biblical prophecies spoke of accelerating decay as a consequence of social chaos, political oppression, poverty, famine and rampant illness. The way the world would end was and still is a matter of debate. Some prophets, like Zechariah, envision a major catastrophe while others, like Isaiah, believed that the transition would be sudden yet peaceful.

Jesus described the end times both ways. Today’s gospel passage resembles Isaiah’s vision. Jesus’ return at the end of time will be like that of the bridegroom showing up late and unexpectedly for his wedding feast.

This parable of the ten virgins seems farfetched to us yet it describes a commonplace situation in biblical times. The groom would arrive at the house of the bride to claim her as his wife. If he arrived after sunset, the bridesmaids would greet him with lamps. Jesus used this familiar image to convey a lesson about his final coming. He warns his followers that his unexpected arrival would catch some of them off guard just as the bridegroom in this story caught five ill-prepared virgins by surprise.

We can interpret Jesus’ parable in this way: he is the bridegroom and the wedding feast stands for the eternal feast of heaven, which commences when Jesus returns in glory to claim the Church as his eternal bride. The wise virgins stand for those who are prepared to meet him while the foolish ones stand for those who are not prepared.

In the years following the ascension of Jesus, many of his followers anticipated his return in glory in their lifetime, but as time passed, they began to realize that Jesus’ return was not imminent. He was coming again, but as he warned, no one knew the day or the hour when he would return so Matthew and the other evangelists began to emphasize a spirit of readiness, challenging generations of Christians to live, like the wise virgins, ready for the final moment.

The odds are, that like countless other Christians, we will not witness the return of Christ in such a dramatic manner in our lifetime. The moment when we meet Jesus will likely be when we take our last breath and when we do, will we be ready? Or will he say to us, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.” If we don’t want to hear those words said to us, then we need to follow the example of the wise virgins.

You may feel that the wise virgins treated the foolish virgins in the parable unfairly. After all, Jesus often talked about sharing but keep in mind some things in life cannot be shared. I can borrow a cup of sugar from you but I can’t take credit for your good deeds or your relationship with Jesus. We cannot borrow our way into heaven. Repentance and our good deeds, which demonstrate how well we have obeyed God’s commandments, provide the “oil” we need to keep our lamps lit.

Two weeks ago I said, “There is only one means of loving God and proving that love: it is by loving our neighbor; there is only one medium by which we serve God: it is by serving our neighbor and conversely, love of neighbor is made possible by our loving relationship with God. The greatest commandment ultimately demands a new lifestyle, a way of living that draws us so close to God that we become His presence for others.” While we may feel sorry for the foolish virgins who are barred from the feast, we must take responsibility for our own readiness.

Many people try to avoid thoughts of death and so are not prepared for the moment when it comes. One litmus test that separates the wise from the foolish would be that the foolish have the attitude of “what me worry?” as though being baptized is all that matters. As wise Christians, our approach is quite different. We face the reality of death throughout our lives. The uncertainty that death could happen at any moment is the reason why we try to live our lives with meaning, purpose, and direction. When we don’t, we must then seek to be reconciled with God. Actively seeking Christ through worship and good deeds helps us to stay awake and be ready to greet him. We wisely realize that we are given this lifetime to prepare ourselves for where we will be for all eternity, which ideally will be at the eternal banquet.

We don’t know when we will take our last breath but when that moment comes, would we be ready to die well? The only real obstacle to dying well is our failure to live well. To live well, we need wisdom; that quality found in the beauty of truth, the radiance of peace, and the realm of love. Wisdom combines common sense, good judgment, and fidelity to God’s laws and ways. Wisdom awakens us to the reality that choosing to live well this day may be the wisest choice we can make for tomorrow we might not have that chance.