Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14
Psalm 24:1-6
1 John 3:1-3
Matthew 5:1-12
To better understand the meaning of All Saints Day, we need to know what a saint is. There are really two meanings of the word saint, two ways that we use this word, and they reflect the two meanings of this holiday. “Saint” means “those who belong to God”, so it partially means all the people in heaven, but it also means all the people in the Church, including us. We belong to God. So today we celebrate the achievements of all the saints in heaven, and we celebrate the possibility of all the saints on earth.
What is the achievement of the saints in heaven? They are happy. They are praising God forever. They are doing what humans were meant to do. If a saint from heaven appeared to us right here, we would think they were an angel or one of the ancient gods, but really they are just a human like you and me. Just some Joe or Sally who lived the way we live. On earth their appearance probably was not impressive, but now we would be embarrassed to stand in their presence. I know that some of the saints in heaven were homeless here on earth. Here they were, to be honest, filthy and smelly, repulsive. There they are now so beautiful that we would not be sure whether to stare in amazement or look away ashamed. This is the achievement of the saints in heaven. These are the people we celebrate today.
What is our possibility, we saints on earth? To be like those saints in heaven. A few years from now, not so many, probably less than we expect, we might be in heaven. We might be like the angels. But how do we turn this possibility into a reality? The answer is in the readings today. Revelation tells us that salvation belongs to our God and the Lamb, Jesus Christ. If we are going to get into heaven, it will not be by our own strength.
In Revelation we see all the saints in heaven praising God. If you want to grow up to be a basketball player or a violinist or anything else, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you want to grow up to be a saint, you have to practice praising God. We need to put in some real time here on earth praising God. We need to set aside time each day to praise God. We need to praise him while we are working. We need to periodically shut off the TV and praise God. No one is ever too busy to praise God.
We do not praise God because he has low self-esteem. We do not praise him for his benefit but for our own. We praise God not out of flattery or fear but because it is the truth. He is great. He is wise. He is powerful. He is wonderful. He is mighty. We forget these things unless we say them. We begin to think that some human person, ourselves perhaps or someone famous, is the greatest, or, if get beyond this delusion, we begin to think that nothing in existence is really that great after all. If we are going to become saints we have to learn the truth: there is something wonderful in this universe and it is God.
The psalm gives us advice about how to get to heaven. It asks, “Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD or who may stand in his holy place?” This was the very question we had, but the answer is not so easy as I had hoped: “One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is useless.” I hear that and wonder whether there is any other way. If heaven is only for those who have never sinned, then we may as well give up now. We are in luck though, we sinners. Jesus Christ came to forgive all of our sins. He forgives our sins without lowering the standard. A clean heart and sinless hands and pure desires are still necessary, but he will bring us up to the standard and even higher.
That higher standard is set today in the Gospel. We have here the beatitudes, these beautiful blessings. Some people consider them to be a kind of commandment, but I think they ought to be thought of more as a ruler. In my house, where I grew up, there is a wall, between the kitchen and the laundry room, where we stood as children while our mother marked our heights. Those marks, now barely visible, show how we grew, inch by inch.
The beatitudes are like that wall. Periodically we ought to stand up next to the beatitudes and see how we are growing. Do I care less about money? Am I dissatisfied with this world? Am I meeker? Do I hunger and thirst for justice? Am I more merciful? Are my desires more pure? Am I making peace in the world? Have I been persecuted for my faith? Inch by inch, reaching heaven by inches, always growing, never shrinking back, and someday we will be a saint in heaven.
Beloved: Do you see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God? And so we are. We are his children now, but what we might yet be has not been revealed. We know a little, just glimpses, like in the book of Revelation today, but we cannot even imagine what it will really be like. We just know that it is going to be good. We just know that we want to be saints forever.
I want to be a saint forever, and I know that in your soul, each one of you, you do too. I know this because built into every human soul is a deep desire to be in heaven. Some people mistake it as boredom or inexplicable sadness. It is dissatisfaction with this world. It is the mourning that Jesus calls blessed, the feeling that surely there is something more than just this. In some people it becomes greed or gluttony or lust, but neither money nor food nor sex can satisfy this desire. God has made us for himself, and we are restless until we rest in him.
Daily Homilies
Showing posts with label Praise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Praise. Show all posts
May 18, 2012 - Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 18:9-18
Psalm 47:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
John 16:20-23
Praise God! We were made to praise God. Our existence is only meaningful when we praise God. The Lord has made us to praise him. We should praise God for the many gifts he has given us. Indeed, our desire to praise him is itself his gift. Nothing feels as wonderful as desiring to praise God. This desire is unlike any other desire in our soul because it is the desire to fulfill our destiny. What could be more wonderful than praising God? The Lord made us to praise him and gives us the desire to praise him, because that is the most wonderful action that is possible.
Indeed, our desire for God is joy itself. True joy is when we feel a longing to shout out in praise of God. There is no happiness of this world that can compare. We forget about joy from time to time, and then we look for cheap substitutes, but when we have joy, when our soul is on fire with the burning desire to praise God, nothing in this world seems to have any value at all.
In such a moment, we have caught a glimpse of heaven. God has many such glimpses available, but we often turn away because of sin. When we sin, we can no longer see heaven. Eventually we stand in the midst of our sins, having forgotten the joy of our youth. Then, having forgotten heaven entirely, we begin to believe that the only happiness we can have in this world must be taken by sin. It is in this state that a Christian, no longer able to feel joy, becomes an atheist or a hypocrite, or does something truly remarkable: they repent.
Joy and sin are incompatible. Trying to feel joy while indulging lust or greed would be like trying to enjoy caviar while chewing gum. Some Christian Saints have lived without joy for a time because God wanted to test them and teach them to praise him without feeling joy, but, for most of us, an absence of joy in our lives indicates the presence of sin. We must be ruthless; do not make any compromise with sin. The sooner we realize that every evil desire in our hearts is a lie, the sooner we will be able to hear the voice of truth. The sooner the last vestige of sin is thrown out, the sooner we will be able to taste joy again.
Psalm 47:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
John 16:20-23
Praise God! We were made to praise God. Our existence is only meaningful when we praise God. The Lord has made us to praise him. We should praise God for the many gifts he has given us. Indeed, our desire to praise him is itself his gift. Nothing feels as wonderful as desiring to praise God. This desire is unlike any other desire in our soul because it is the desire to fulfill our destiny. What could be more wonderful than praising God? The Lord made us to praise him and gives us the desire to praise him, because that is the most wonderful action that is possible.
Indeed, our desire for God is joy itself. True joy is when we feel a longing to shout out in praise of God. There is no happiness of this world that can compare. We forget about joy from time to time, and then we look for cheap substitutes, but when we have joy, when our soul is on fire with the burning desire to praise God, nothing in this world seems to have any value at all.
In such a moment, we have caught a glimpse of heaven. God has many such glimpses available, but we often turn away because of sin. When we sin, we can no longer see heaven. Eventually we stand in the midst of our sins, having forgotten the joy of our youth. Then, having forgotten heaven entirely, we begin to believe that the only happiness we can have in this world must be taken by sin. It is in this state that a Christian, no longer able to feel joy, becomes an atheist or a hypocrite, or does something truly remarkable: they repent.
Joy and sin are incompatible. Trying to feel joy while indulging lust or greed would be like trying to enjoy caviar while chewing gum. Some Christian Saints have lived without joy for a time because God wanted to test them and teach them to praise him without feeling joy, but, for most of us, an absence of joy in our lives indicates the presence of sin. We must be ruthless; do not make any compromise with sin. The sooner we realize that every evil desire in our hearts is a lie, the sooner we will be able to hear the voice of truth. The sooner the last vestige of sin is thrown out, the sooner we will be able to taste joy again.
April 1, 2012 - Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord
Today's Readings
We begin Holy Week today. During Holy Week we remember the last week before Jesus’ death. Holy Week is the prototype of all the weeks of the year. Thursday is always a good day for Eucharistic Adoration, since it was on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. Every Friday of the year is a day of abstinence from meat. In addition to this small sacrifice, each Friday in general ought to be devoted to a more serious attitude, since Good Friday was the day that Jesus died for our sins. Every Saturday is devoted to the Blessed Mother and to silence, since it was on Holy Saturday that Jesus’ body lay in the tomb silently, and it was on Holy Saturday that our Blessed Mother was at home, mourning for her son, believing that he would rise. Every Sunday is a day of rejoicing, since on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. For this reason, we all come to Church every Sunday in hopes that we too will rise.
Why do we today then, on a Sunday, read out the Passion of Jesus Christ? It seems out of place, since Jesus did not die on Palm Sunday and it seems inappropriate, since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rejoicing. Partly, the reason is just practical: not everyone can be here on Good Friday and the Gospel next Sunday, on Easter, will not make much sense without the Gospel today. Jesus cannot rise without having first died. This is not the whole reason though.
It is indeed fitting to read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ today. We must realize that the triumphant arrival of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem was one with his death on the Cross. On Palm Sunday, Jesus climbed up Mount Zion; in his passion, he climbed Mount Calvary. On Palm Sunday, Jesus was carried into Jerusalem; in his passion, he walked carrying his cross. On Palm Sunday, a crowd lined the streets to praise our Lord; a crowd lined the way of the cross too. On Palm Sunday, the crowd took off their cloaks and laid them on the road to honor Jesus; before the cross, Jesus was stripped of his cloak. On Palm Sunday, everyone praised Jesus, calling out “Hosanna!” In his passion, Jesus was insulted, mocked, and laughed at.
Palm Sunday is the key to understanding the Passion, and the Passion is the key to understanding Palm Sunday. We stand with palms in our hands because we want to worship God and give him the honor that is his due. We also stand as sinners. We are the reason that Jesus died on the cross. We praise God and ask forgiveness. On the one hand, we imagine that we are already up in heaven praising Jesus. On the other hand, we allow the demons to pull us down to Hell. Are we part of the crowd praising Jesus or are we part of the crowd demanding that he be crucified? Both. Let us not imagine that we are so good that we would never have gone along with his death. Every time we commit sin, we stand with the crowd yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Indeed, his blood is on us, and that blood saves us.
We begin Holy Week today. During Holy Week we remember the last week before Jesus’ death. Holy Week is the prototype of all the weeks of the year. Thursday is always a good day for Eucharistic Adoration, since it was on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. Every Friday of the year is a day of abstinence from meat. In addition to this small sacrifice, each Friday in general ought to be devoted to a more serious attitude, since Good Friday was the day that Jesus died for our sins. Every Saturday is devoted to the Blessed Mother and to silence, since it was on Holy Saturday that Jesus’ body lay in the tomb silently, and it was on Holy Saturday that our Blessed Mother was at home, mourning for her son, believing that he would rise. Every Sunday is a day of rejoicing, since on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. For this reason, we all come to Church every Sunday in hopes that we too will rise.
Why do we today then, on a Sunday, read out the Passion of Jesus Christ? It seems out of place, since Jesus did not die on Palm Sunday and it seems inappropriate, since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rejoicing. Partly, the reason is just practical: not everyone can be here on Good Friday and the Gospel next Sunday, on Easter, will not make much sense without the Gospel today. Jesus cannot rise without having first died. This is not the whole reason though.
It is indeed fitting to read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ today. We must realize that the triumphant arrival of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem was one with his death on the Cross. On Palm Sunday, Jesus climbed up Mount Zion; in his passion, he climbed Mount Calvary. On Palm Sunday, Jesus was carried into Jerusalem; in his passion, he walked carrying his cross. On Palm Sunday, a crowd lined the streets to praise our Lord; a crowd lined the way of the cross too. On Palm Sunday, the crowd took off their cloaks and laid them on the road to honor Jesus; before the cross, Jesus was stripped of his cloak. On Palm Sunday, everyone praised Jesus, calling out “Hosanna!” In his passion, Jesus was insulted, mocked, and laughed at.
Palm Sunday is the key to understanding the Passion, and the Passion is the key to understanding Palm Sunday. We stand with palms in our hands because we want to worship God and give him the honor that is his due. We also stand as sinners. We are the reason that Jesus died on the cross. We praise God and ask forgiveness. On the one hand, we imagine that we are already up in heaven praising Jesus. On the other hand, we allow the demons to pull us down to Hell. Are we part of the crowd praising Jesus or are we part of the crowd demanding that he be crucified? Both. Let us not imagine that we are so good that we would never have gone along with his death. Every time we commit sin, we stand with the crowd yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Indeed, his blood is on us, and that blood saves us.
March 23, 2012 - Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Today's Readings
The first reading today, from the book of Wisdom, is amazing. Written over 100 years before Jesus was born, it perfectly describes the events of Jesus’ death. Through this reading, we enter into the psychology of the Pharisees and priests who wanted Jesus put to death. In the book of Wisdom, they are called “the wicked.” I suppose that when they read the book of Wisdom they never imagined that they would be “the wicked”.
The wicked cannot stand the just one. They say, “Merely to see him is a hardship for us.” They are jealous. They know their own faults, the ways in which they are failing to live up to the training of their youth, but they put up with their faults, hiding them as much as they can. Then the just one appears, and it is as if Joe Mauer showed up at the company softball game. Now nothing is hidden. They look terrible by comparison.
There is a children’s book where a girl gets a wish and she wishes to be the best player on her basketball team. Her wish is granted. When the next game arrives, the girl is still a mediocre player, but all the stars have lost their talent. She was now the best player simply because everyone else has become horrible.
Only an immature spirituality can be jealous. If I see that others have made more progress than me in the love of God and purity of heart, I rejoice. The more God is praised, the better. When I consider my sins, I hope that I am the worst in the world, I hope that everyone else is at least better than I am. If someone can preach better than I, praise God! If someone can heal the sick by laying on hands though I cannot, praise God! If someone can raise money better than I, praise God! If someone can pray better than I, hearing the very voice of God, praise God! If someone can forgive others more quickly than I can, praise God!
In the pursuit of holiness, we should run, not walk. Indeed, we should run so as to win, with all our strength, but if, as we are running as hard as we can, someone else passes us at an incredible speed, praise God!
The first reading today, from the book of Wisdom, is amazing. Written over 100 years before Jesus was born, it perfectly describes the events of Jesus’ death. Through this reading, we enter into the psychology of the Pharisees and priests who wanted Jesus put to death. In the book of Wisdom, they are called “the wicked.” I suppose that when they read the book of Wisdom they never imagined that they would be “the wicked”.
The wicked cannot stand the just one. They say, “Merely to see him is a hardship for us.” They are jealous. They know their own faults, the ways in which they are failing to live up to the training of their youth, but they put up with their faults, hiding them as much as they can. Then the just one appears, and it is as if Joe Mauer showed up at the company softball game. Now nothing is hidden. They look terrible by comparison.
There is a children’s book where a girl gets a wish and she wishes to be the best player on her basketball team. Her wish is granted. When the next game arrives, the girl is still a mediocre player, but all the stars have lost their talent. She was now the best player simply because everyone else has become horrible.
Only an immature spirituality can be jealous. If I see that others have made more progress than me in the love of God and purity of heart, I rejoice. The more God is praised, the better. When I consider my sins, I hope that I am the worst in the world, I hope that everyone else is at least better than I am. If someone can preach better than I, praise God! If someone can heal the sick by laying on hands though I cannot, praise God! If someone can raise money better than I, praise God! If someone can pray better than I, hearing the very voice of God, praise God! If someone can forgive others more quickly than I can, praise God!
In the pursuit of holiness, we should run, not walk. Indeed, we should run so as to win, with all our strength, but if, as we are running as hard as we can, someone else passes us at an incredible speed, praise God!
November 1, 2011 - Solemnity of All Saints
Today's Readings
Today is All Saints Day. To better understand the meaning of this holiday, we need to know what a saint is. There are really two meanings of the word saint, two ways that we use this word, and they reflect the two meanings of this holiday. “Saint” means “those who belong to God”, so it partially means all the people in heaven, but it also means all the people in the Church, including us. We belong to God. So today we celebrate the achievements of all the saints in heaven, and we celebrate the possibility of all the saints on earth.
What is the achievement of the saints in heaven? They are happy. They are praising God forever. They are doing what humans were meant to do. If a saint from heaven appeared to us right here, we would think they were an angel or one of the ancient gods, but really they are just a human like you and me. Just some Joe or Sally who lived the way we live. On earth their appearance probably was not impressive, but now we would be embarrassed to stand in their presence. I know that some of the saints in heaven were homeless here on earth. Here they were, to be honest, filthy and smelly, repulsive. There they are now so beautiful that we would not be sure whether to stare in amazement or look away ashamed. This is the achievement of the saints in heaven. These are the people we celebrate today.
What is our possibility, we saints on earth? To be like those saints in heaven. A few years from now, not so many, probably less than we expect, we might be in heaven. We might be like the angels. But how do we turn this possibility into a reality? The answer is in the readings today. Revelation tells us that salvation belongs to our God and the Lamb, Jesus Christ. If we are going to get into heaven, it will not be by our own strength.
In Revelation we see all the saints in heaven praising God. If you want to grow up to be a basketball player or a violinist or anything else, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you want to grow up to be a saint, you have to practice praising God. We need to put in some real time here on earth praising God. We need to set aside time each day to praise God. We need to praise him while we are working. We need to periodically shut off the TV and praise God. No one is ever too busy to praise God.
We do not praise God because he has low self-esteem. We do not praise him for his benefit but for our own. We praise God not out of flattery or fear but because it is the truth. He is great. He is wise. He is powerful. He is wonderful. He is mighty. We forget these things unless we say them. We begin to think that some human person, ourselves perhaps or a star, is the greatest, or, if get beyond this delusion, we begin to think that nothing in existence is really that great after all. If we are going to become saints we have to learn the truth: there is something wonderful in this universe and it is God.
The psalm gives us advice about how to get to heaven. It asks, “Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD or who may stand in his holy place?” This was the very question we had, but the answer is not so easy as I had hoped: “One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is useless.” I hear that and wonder whether there is any other way. If heaven is only for those who have never sinned, then we may as well give up now. We are in luck though, we sinners. Jesus Christ came to forgive all of our sins. He forgives our sins without lowering the standard. A clean heart and sinless hands and pure desires are still necessary, but he will bring us up to the standard and even higher.
That higher standard is set today in the Gospel. We have here the beatitudes, these beautiful blessings. Some people consider them to be a kind of commandment, but I think they ought to be thought of more as a ruler. In my house, where I grew up, there is a wall, between the kitchen and the laundry room, where we stood as children while our mother marked our heights. Those marks, now barely visible, show how we grew, inch by inch.
The beatitudes are like that wall. Periodically we ought to stand up next to the beatitudes and see how we are growing. Do I care less about money? Am I dissatisfied with this world? Am I meeker? Do I hunger and thirst for justice? Am I more merciful? Are my desires more pure? Am I making peace in the world? Have I been persecuted for my faith? Inch by inch, reaching heaven by inches, always growing, never shrinking back, and someday we will be a saint in heaven.
Beloved: Do you see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God? And so we are. We are his children now, but what we might yet be has not been revealed. We know a little, just glimpses, like in the book of Revelation today, but we cannot even imagine what it will really be like. We just know that it is going to be good. We just know that we want to be saints forever.
I want to be a saint forever, and I know that in your soul, each one of you, you do too. I know this because built into every human soul is a deep desire to be in heaven. Some people mistake it as boredom or inexplicable sadness. It is dissatisfaction with this world. It is the mourning that Jesus calls blessed, the feeling that surely there is something more than just this. In some people it becomes greed or gluttony or lust, but neither money nor food nor sex can satisfy this desire. God has made us for himself, and we are restless until we rest in him.
Today is All Saints Day. To better understand the meaning of this holiday, we need to know what a saint is. There are really two meanings of the word saint, two ways that we use this word, and they reflect the two meanings of this holiday. “Saint” means “those who belong to God”, so it partially means all the people in heaven, but it also means all the people in the Church, including us. We belong to God. So today we celebrate the achievements of all the saints in heaven, and we celebrate the possibility of all the saints on earth.
What is the achievement of the saints in heaven? They are happy. They are praising God forever. They are doing what humans were meant to do. If a saint from heaven appeared to us right here, we would think they were an angel or one of the ancient gods, but really they are just a human like you and me. Just some Joe or Sally who lived the way we live. On earth their appearance probably was not impressive, but now we would be embarrassed to stand in their presence. I know that some of the saints in heaven were homeless here on earth. Here they were, to be honest, filthy and smelly, repulsive. There they are now so beautiful that we would not be sure whether to stare in amazement or look away ashamed. This is the achievement of the saints in heaven. These are the people we celebrate today.
What is our possibility, we saints on earth? To be like those saints in heaven. A few years from now, not so many, probably less than we expect, we might be in heaven. We might be like the angels. But how do we turn this possibility into a reality? The answer is in the readings today. Revelation tells us that salvation belongs to our God and the Lamb, Jesus Christ. If we are going to get into heaven, it will not be by our own strength.
In Revelation we see all the saints in heaven praising God. If you want to grow up to be a basketball player or a violinist or anything else, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you want to grow up to be a saint, you have to practice praising God. We need to put in some real time here on earth praising God. We need to set aside time each day to praise God. We need to praise him while we are working. We need to periodically shut off the TV and praise God. No one is ever too busy to praise God.
We do not praise God because he has low self-esteem. We do not praise him for his benefit but for our own. We praise God not out of flattery or fear but because it is the truth. He is great. He is wise. He is powerful. He is wonderful. He is mighty. We forget these things unless we say them. We begin to think that some human person, ourselves perhaps or a star, is the greatest, or, if get beyond this delusion, we begin to think that nothing in existence is really that great after all. If we are going to become saints we have to learn the truth: there is something wonderful in this universe and it is God.
The psalm gives us advice about how to get to heaven. It asks, “Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD or who may stand in his holy place?” This was the very question we had, but the answer is not so easy as I had hoped: “One whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean, who desires not what is useless.” I hear that and wonder whether there is any other way. If heaven is only for those who have never sinned, then we may as well give up now. We are in luck though, we sinners. Jesus Christ came to forgive all of our sins. He forgives our sins without lowering the standard. A clean heart and sinless hands and pure desires are still necessary, but he will bring us up to the standard and even higher.
That higher standard is set today in the Gospel. We have here the beatitudes, these beautiful blessings. Some people consider them to be a kind of commandment, but I think they ought to be thought of more as a ruler. In my house, where I grew up, there is a wall, between the kitchen and the laundry room, where we stood as children while our mother marked our heights. Those marks, now barely visible, show how we grew, inch by inch.
The beatitudes are like that wall. Periodically we ought to stand up next to the beatitudes and see how we are growing. Do I care less about money? Am I dissatisfied with this world? Am I meeker? Do I hunger and thirst for justice? Am I more merciful? Are my desires more pure? Am I making peace in the world? Have I been persecuted for my faith? Inch by inch, reaching heaven by inches, always growing, never shrinking back, and someday we will be a saint in heaven.
Beloved: Do you see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God? And so we are. We are his children now, but what we might yet be has not been revealed. We know a little, just glimpses, like in the book of Revelation today, but we cannot even imagine what it will really be like. We just know that it is going to be good. We just know that we want to be saints forever.
I want to be a saint forever, and I know that in your soul, each one of you, you do too. I know this because built into every human soul is a deep desire to be in heaven. Some people mistake it as boredom or inexplicable sadness. It is dissatisfaction with this world. It is the mourning that Jesus calls blessed, the feeling that surely there is something more than just this. In some people it becomes greed or gluttony or lust, but neither money nor food nor sex can satisfy this desire. God has made us for himself, and we are restless until we rest in him.
April 17, 2011 - Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion
Today's Readings
We begin Holy Week today. During Holy Week we remember the last week before Jesus’ death. Holy Week is the prototype of all the weeks of the year. Thursday is always a good day for Eucharistic Adoration, since it was on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. Every Friday of the year is a day of abstinence from meat. In addition to this small sacrifice, each Friday in general ought to be devoted to a more serious attitude, since Good Friday was the day that Jesus died for our sins. Every Saturday is devoted to the Blessed Mother and to silence, since it was on Holy Saturday that Jesus’ body lay in the tomb silently, and it was on Holy Saturday that our Blessed Mother was at home, mourning for her son, believing that he would rise. Every Sunday is a day of rejoicing, since on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. For this reason, we all come to Church every Sunday in hopes that we too will rise.
Palm Sunday is the key to understanding the Passion, and the Passion is the key to understanding Palm Sunday. We stand with palms in our hands because we want to worship God and give him the honor that is his due. We also stand as sinners. We are the reason that Jesus died on the cross. We praise God and ask forgiveness. On the one hand, we imagine that we are already up in heaven praising Jesus. On the other hand, we allow the demons to pull us down to Hell. Are we part of the crowd praising Jesus or are we part of the crowd demanding that he be crucified? Both. Let us not imagine that we are so good that we would never have gone along with his death. Every time we commit sin, we stand with the crowd yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Indeed, his blood is on us, and that blood saves us.
We begin Holy Week today. During Holy Week we remember the last week before Jesus’ death. Holy Week is the prototype of all the weeks of the year. Thursday is always a good day for Eucharistic Adoration, since it was on Holy Thursday at the Last Supper that Jesus instituted the Eucharist. Every Friday of the year is a day of abstinence from meat. In addition to this small sacrifice, each Friday in general ought to be devoted to a more serious attitude, since Good Friday was the day that Jesus died for our sins. Every Saturday is devoted to the Blessed Mother and to silence, since it was on Holy Saturday that Jesus’ body lay in the tomb silently, and it was on Holy Saturday that our Blessed Mother was at home, mourning for her son, believing that he would rise. Every Sunday is a day of rejoicing, since on Easter Sunday Jesus rose from the dead. For this reason, we all come to Church every Sunday in hopes that we too will rise.
Why do we today then, on a Sunday, read out the Passion of Jesus Christ? It seems out of place, since Jesus did not die on Palm Sunday and it seems inappropriate, since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rejoicing. Partly, the reason is just practical: not everyone can be here on Good Friday and the Gospel next Sunday, on Easter, will not make much sense without the Gospel today. Jesus cannot rise without having first died. This is not the whole reason though.
It is indeed fitting to read the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ today. We must realize that the triumphant arrival of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem was one with his death on the Cross. On Palm Sunday, Jesus climbed up Mount Zion; in his passion, he climbed Mount Calvary. On Palm Sunday, Jesus was carried into Jerusalem; in his passion, he walked carrying his cross. On Palm Sunday, a crowd lined the streets to praise our Lord; a crowd lined the way of the cross too. On Palm Sunday, the crowd took off their cloaks and laid them on the road to honor Jesus; before the cross, Jesus was stripped of his cloak. On Palm Sunday, everyone praised Jesus, calling out “Hosanna!” In his passion, Jesus was insulted, mocked, and laughed at.
March 3, 2011 - Thursday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time
Sirach is praising God in the reading today. He is showing us how we can miss how wonderful God is if we just take everything for granted. He reminds us “How beautiful are all his works! even to the spark and fleeting vision!” We can look at something as simple as a spark and realize the greatness of God. Our tendency is to not think about such things, or, if we do enjoy sitting and watching a campfire, we forget that what we are watching is the creation of God. When we contemplate God, we often think of him as if he were just one more character in this universe, but, in reality, he existed before the universe and time, and he created everything from nothing: inventing every law of physics, every color, every idea, every creature that exists. When we invent something, we copy God. Some human beings invented the cell phone, but God invented sound and radio waves and plastic and electricity and light, and, of course, the human brain that thought of putting all these things together.
It is not merely difficult for us to comprehend that God created the world from nothing at all, it is impossible. We like to think that our minds can understand anything. If something does not make sense to us, we want to just reject it as unimportant. How logical it is though that what is most important in the universe would not be completely comprehensible! Just because we cannot wrap our minds entirely around God does not mean he does not make sense; it just means that our minds are not big enough.
We are not alone. Sirach says that even the angels fail to recount all the wonders of God. Our minds are like the minds of infants compared to the angels, yet God is as far beyond them as the unlimited is beyond the limited. We can only praise God as we are able. We must never, however, presume that the idea of God in our minds is anything but a shadow. We are safest when we say only unlimited things about God: God is the greatest, God is the highest, God loves us perfectly forever. In heaven we will have all of eternity to dive deeper and deeper into the mystery of God, never reaching the end.
February 26, 2011 - Saturday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
The Lord has made us to praise him. This is not to say that the Lord made us because he wanted to be praised. God is perfectly happy in the perfect union of the Trinity. He is not looking for compliments. The Lord made us to praise him because that is the most wonderful action that is possible. God could have made us so that our final happiness was found in something simpler. He could have made creatures who delighted in a full stomach and a good bed and nothing more. But a creature is only as great as their final destiny. It is only the dissatisfaction that we sense in the things of this earth that make us look toward heaven. All of the truly great accomplishments in art or music or literature are the result of this desire we have to praise God, even if the artist did not know why they were impelled to create something beautiful.
This desire to praise God is inside each one of us, and it is God’s own gift to us. Our soul cries out like an infant, unable to put its desire into words. We try to quiet it with pacifiers. There are many pacifiers in this world: food, alcohol, sex, entertainment. Sometimes the pacifier works for awhile, but then our soul begins crying out again. Some people try to keep up a variety of these pacifiers, switching whenever one has lost its power. Some people remain bored and unhappy as they continually go to the same pacifier looking for the satisfaction they have never found there.
We, however, know what our soul is crying out for. We want love, and not the imperfect love that any human being can give us. This too can be just another pacifier. We want the perfect love of God. Without a doubt, God does love us. He is love, and he created us. It is left for us to recognize his love. This recognition is praise. Boredom is a sign that we have not been praising God enough, that we have forgotten about the love of God. Every time we choose to answer boredom with one of the pacifiers of this world instead of by praising God, we make ourselves less than we should be. Whenever we do praise God, we are fulfilling our soul’s true desire.
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