HOMILY Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time June 25, 2023

 HOMILY    Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time     June 25, 2023

           Anyone here ever see the 1986 horror movie, The Fly, staring Jeff Goldblum?  In it there is the line, “Be afraid.  Be very afraid.”  This phrase has since entered the common parlance, since it captures a very real emotion.  “Be afraid.  Be very afraid.”

          There is much to arouse fear in us.  There are a plethora a reasons to keep you awake at night.  Rogue nations with nuclear weapons.  Terrorists with biological weapons.  Mass shootings.  Hackers stealing your passwords and all your money.  Irrevocable degradation of the environment and natural disasters.  Cancer.  Politics.  And more.

          So the phrase “Be afraid.  Be very afraid” rings all too true.   We see, especially in young people today, a scary increase in anxiety and despair and even suicide.   “Be afraid.  Be very afraid.”    //

          Our Gospel this evening however takes a totally different approach.   In the Gospel we just heard Jesus tells us: “Fear no one.”  A little later He says: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”   And still later He concludes simply, “So do not be afraid.”

          Do not be afraid.  OK.  How do you do that??  By a shear act of will?   I can’t do that.  Can you?  I doubt it.

          However, we read in the First Letter of St. John, chapter 4, verse 18: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.”

          Perfect love drives out fear.  If we could love perfectly, we could drive out all fear from our hearts.  But that is a pretty tall order.  Fortunately, the love with witch Jesus loves us IS perfect.  It is total and complete.  And so it has the power to drive out fear.  This is why St. John in the very next verse states: “We love because he first loved us.”  

           The love that Jesus has for you individually and particularly is both real and very powerful.  His love has conquered death.

          Brothers and sisters, the more we can open ourselves to the love Jesus has for each of us, the more we can love in return, and then we will be so whole, so holy, that we can let go of fear.  We are, each of us, God’s beloved children.  So do not be afraid. 

          AMEN.

HOMILY Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle A June 18, 2023

 HOMILY   Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time  Cycle A    June 18, 2023

In the Gospel we just heard, we are told that “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”  

Now I am not a particularly emotive sort of person.   I am not particularly public about my feelings.  Still, I always find the emotional life of Jesus interesting.  Indeed fascinating.  Jesus, if you read the Gospels carefully, was certainly not a restrained, self-composed, impassible, unfeeling stoic.  Jesus was not the strong, silent type.  Far from it.  The Gospels show Jesus as someone with a vibrant emotional life, feeling things deeply and expressing them fully.  Jesus had a rich emotional life.

          So, in the Gospel today Jesus has a strong emotional reaction.  “At the sight of the crowd, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”   

          I hope that you can in some way identify with Jesus in His emotions, and feel what Jesus feels.  Has your heart ever been moved with pity for others because of their sad and downtrodden state? … If you do identify with Jesus then you should know this feeling.  You should feel what Jesus feels; feeling pity for the victims of natural disasters; for the Ukrainians whose cities and towns are constantly being bombed and destroyed; for the starving people in Sudan; even for the urban Americans in the Northeast who suffered from horrible air quality coming from the Canadian wild fires; as well as people close at hand who are troubled and burdened by illness, poverty, addictions, and all sorts of problems.  There is much reason to feel pity along with Jesus.

          It is interesting to see how various Bible translations render this passage of “because they were troubled and abandoned,”    

TWO                    TWO                    TWO                    June 18, 2023

 

The Orthodox Bible renders this as “they were weary and scattered..”  The NRSV says they were “harassed and helpless…”   The Jerusalem Bible put it “they were harassed and dejected…”   Maybe you can identify a little better with being “harassed and dejected” than with “troubled and abandoned”.   Ever been “harassed and dejected”?  Of course.  We have all been there.  [Just try driving on I 35 and you will experience harassed and dejected.]

          Jesus’ reaction is to tell his disciples – that means you and me – “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  

          Who is Jesus talking about?  Who are these laborers?    Well, look around you.  We are it.  We, as Christians, as Catholics, as members of St Austin Parish, are called.  And we are not just called to be blessed and fortunate, which we are, but also called to work.  To labor.  To go into the harvest that is abundant and do God’s work. 

          We each have our individual talents that we are to use to assist in the “harvest”.   That certainly may mean prayer.  It may mean donating money.  It may be a call to serve in a liturgical ministry, or to assist with Thursday Outreach or the St Vincent de Paul Society, to serve on the Property Committee, or the Prayer Blanket Ministry, or the Knights of Columbus, or in many other ways in your local school or some civic organization.  Usually not in big, dramatic ways of going to a foreign mission or martyrdom, but each of us using the gifts and opportunities we have been given to serve God’s People, and to build up God’s Kingdom. 

 

THREE                THREE                THREE                June 18, 2023

 

          Let me highlight one very special way one or two of you here today may be called by the master of the harvest, and that is to serve God’s people as a priest, deacon, religious sister or brother. 

Last year the Paulists did not have any ordinations to the priesthood, and only one this year.  This year the Diocese of Austin did not have any ordinations to the priesthood for the first time in decades.

          Brothers and siters, we cannot keep importing priests from the third world.  That is not a sustainable option.  “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few, …”  If we want the Paulist Fathers to continue to serve this parish and other parishes around the country we need to pray and work for more vocations.  The seminarians that the Paulists now do have, though small in number, are really fine men.   But they can only be in one place at a time.  We need more.   So please continue to pray for vocations. 

 

          In today’s Gospel we see Jesus get emotional.  May our hearts be touched by the Holy Spirit to be moved with pity for those who are harassed and dejected, and like the Apostles in the Gospel, be sent in mission.  AMEN.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ June 11, 2023

 The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ          June 11, 2023

In our first reading, Moses said to the people, and that means to us right here, right now: “Remember….”  And later “Do not forget the Lord, your God, …” 

          Any of you who are as old as I am, and are having a hard time remembering people’s names, or where you left your keys or phone, or what you were supposed to do this afternoon, you recognize the importance of memory. 

So on this Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, it is wonderfully appropriate that we start with a call to remember.  Not just to call back to mind Jesus’ gift of Himself in the Eucharist, but also to member again, to put back together the parts of the Body of Christ into one, to re-member the body of believers that is the Body of Christ.

St Paul in our second reading reminds us that “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” 

Unfortunately, we miss this symbolism because we consecrate and use individual hosts.  Convenience has won out over our theological symbolism.  I remember a time we used to do Masses where we used an actual loaf, unleavened bread baked by a parishioner, and broke off hunks of bread for the Eucharist.  Anyone else remember that?  But it was inconvenient. There were crumbs.  And people got scrupulous about the matter.  

None-the-less, we can still understand the symbolism of what St. Paul is saying.  “We, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”  We re-member, put back together again, the Body of Christ by all partaking of the one loaf.

     And in the Gospel Jesus solemnly declares: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

          Jesus, I believe, in this dramatic and startling language, is inviting us into very deep intimacy with Him.  When you eat a hamburger or a pizza or wonderful Texas BBQ, what you eat becomes a part of you, your flesh and bones.  But when we consume the Body and Blood of Jesus, it is just the opposite.  Rather, we become part of Jesus.  St Augustine of Hippo said of the Eucharist: “Behold what you are.  Become what you receive.”  

We are united to Christ, and in Christ to all other communicants.  We remain in Him, and He in us.  We receive the Body of Christ and so become part of the Body of Christ in a very real and effective way.  We can, indeed must, be His presence in the world.  We have His life in us from eating His flesh and drinking His blood.  Thus, we become His presence now.  //

 

          The world is hungry.  The world is emaciated, starving.  Not only for physical food and drink, but for compassion, for honesty, for concern, for bravery, for gentleness, for truth, for beauty, for meaning and purpose, and for so many other things.  Truly, the world is hungry.

          Jesus yearns and longs to feed the hungers of the world.  But Jesus can do it only through us.  “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.”   We are to become bread and wine, true food, for the world and its many hungers.  That is what it means to be Christian, a member of the living Body of Christ. 

           It is a huge task.  But we do it in faith and hope.  For we have confidence in the promise of Jesus given to us again today in the Gospel: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him or her on the last day.”  

          Bon Appetit!