Homily for Mar. 30

Easter2 - Thomas and Faith
Thomas was not with the Apostles last week, and so he missed out on Easter and missed out on faith in the Lord. Jesus, however, gives Thomas a second chance.
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, but it might also be called Second Chance Sunday. It reminds us that there are many who feel uncomfortable in church and many who wish, like Thomas, that they had faith. God in his mercy wants to bless all with faith in Him.
[Readings]

Homily for Easter

Easter Vigil - Christ is Risen!
We read in the Bible that God is Love, and that God made us in his image. That means we were made to love. Jesus shows us what it means to truly love unconditionally:
Christ is Risen!
He is truly Risen!
[Readings]

Stations at the Colosseum

Stations of the Cross are not part of the official liturgical celebrations of the Triduum. The stations are, however, a very beatiful devotion and one that has nourished the faith of Christians for centuries. One of the customs of the Pope is to visit the Colosseum on Good Friday to celebrate the Stations of the Cross there. The "Flavian Amphitheater", as the Romans called the arena, and the various circuses around Rome, were sites of the martyrdom of many Christians under the early persecutions.

The whole area around the Colosseum was illuminated with lights set up for the event. The hulk of the Colosseum was lit up with candles placed in the arches, but it still looked dark and unfriendly. It serves as a potent reminder of the persecutions against the faith which began with Jesus Christ and have continued down to our own time. Perhaps it was thinking of the continued sufferings of the Church that motivated the Pope to ask Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-Kiun, the Bishop of Hong Kong, to write the stations for this year. Instead of following the classical fourteen stations, he followed those which are grounded in the Scriptures.

The stations began at 9:15, and by that time it had been raining steadily and began to rain quite heavily. The Pope was safely protected in a white tent, while the rest of us huddled under umbrellas enduring the driving rain and the gusty wind. The guy next to me had his umbrella turn inside out several times. Strangely, the whole experience was very conducive to prayer, and the stations passed from one to the next until Jesus was taken down and placed in the tomb. The Holy Father concluded with a few comments and gave the blessing to us all.

As I think over the experience, my thoughts land on Jesus placed in the tomb. Now is a moment to remember not only Jesus resting in the tomb, but all the Christian martyrs, many who are known to God alone. They wait to rise on the last day as Jesus did, and to receive their eternal reward.

May we be there to join them.

Good Friday

The Good Friday service is bare and somber, reflecting in a liturgical way the stark and brutal death of the Lord. The service has a minimum of music and bears only a passing resemblance to Mass. It begins in silence and ends in silence. The major components of the liturgy are:

1) Reading of the Passion of Christ

2) Ten long intercessions, pray for everyone in the whole world, from the Pope to those who do not believe in God to the sick and the suffering.

3) A cross is brought into church. People pray before it and show some sign of reverence, out of love for the Lord who suffered on it.

4) The People receive Communion from what was left over from the Holy Thursday Mass.

I had no idea that this Holy Week would be such a new experience for me. It is very different to celebrate these services for the first time. For Good Friday, my pastor had decided to use a very large cross in procession -- it was easily 12 or 15 feet tall. As we carried it up to the front, I had to sing, "This is the wood of the cross, on which is hung the savior of the world." Having never done this part before, I didn't know the tune. Our liturgist worked with me for 15 minutes until I could do a respectable job.

I did not really give a homily. Instead, I introduced the reading of the Passion with some very simple words:
Today Christ suffered and died for us. Let us listen to this account of the Passion with new ears, as though we were hearing it for the first time. Jesus did not die for humanity in general, he died for each of you by name. He wants to speak to you; listen to what he has to say to you here today.

The Passion was followed by silence. At the end of Mass, as we processed to the back, we realized that it was snowing! (maybe in the Wisconsin reading of the Passion, instead of three hours of darkness Christ suffers three hours of snow). As I walked back up to the sacristy, people filed past me and greeted me in subdued tones. It felt like the receiving line at a funeral. And maybe it was, after all. They had paid their respects to the casket and now they were commenting:
"Sorry for your loss."
"Sorry to hear about your friend, Jesus."

Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord's Supper

This evening my pastor gave me the privilege of being the principal celebrant of Holy Thursday. He himself was present as a concelebrant. Holy Thursday beings the Triduum, the three-day commemoration of the Lord's passion, death, and Resurrection. In fact, the three celebrations are joined together as one long celebration. As you know, Mass usually begins with the Sign of the Cross and ends with a blessing. Holy Thursday has the Sign of the Cross to begin, but a blessing is not given until the end of the Easter Vigil Mass. There is no sign of the cross to begin Good Friday, nor for Easter Vigil. In this way the three separate celebrations form one long continuum, with one Sign of the Cross to begin and one blessing to conclude.

There is always a practice for big masses. Our liturgist did a wonderful job talking us through the Holy Thursday Mass, but I was still more nervous than I have been since my very first Mass following ordination. We had a few hiccups at the beginning but the Mass went very well. It was my first time washing feet. At the end of Mass, there is a long procession to the altar of repose. The Eucharist is not reserved in the usual tabernacle, but instead placed in a secluded spot that is decorated to resemble the Garden of Gethsemane. I was the one holding the Ciborium containing Christ. I thought back on my time as an altar server. My brother and I used to serve together at a church which used two thuribles of incense for this procession, one facing backwards and once facing forwards. We were supposed to be those servers during the Easter Mass, but my family moved before we could do that. Now instead of swinging incense, I was the one carrying the Lord. It was a humbling moment.

REFLECTION ON THE MYSTERY

There are three unique mysteries recalled at this Mass of the Last Supper. The first mystery is Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. The second mystery is Jesus instituting the Eucharist. And the third mystery is the institution of the Priesthood. We could say that it is the Eucharist which created the Priesthood through the command, "Do this in memory of me." And in reality, all three mysteries are one. Christ emptied himself, becoming not only a man but even a servant. The Eucharist is his great service to us. He sacrificed that we might have the Eucharist, and the continued presence of the Eucharist requires sacrifice. Specifically it requires that the Christian community allow some of her members to become celibate clergy dedicated to the priestly service of God and neighbor. What is the priesthood but a man who washes the sins of others with gifts given by God, as a servant would wash the dust off the feet? So all the mysteries are one.

Let us consider what we do at Mass and not be too hasty to receive Communion without realizing what we are involving ourselves in. St. Augustine warns, "If you sit down to eat at the table of a ruler, observe carefully what is set before you; then stretch out your hand, knowing that you must provide the same kind of meal yourself." The meal we receive is Christ's offering of himself, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, for our salvation. It is a great Washing of our Feet. Are we prepared to offer ourselves back to him, Body and Blood, Soul and Humanity? Are we prepared to take up the cross that he carries, to drink the cup that he drinks, and to wash the feet of others? Think of this before you receive him.

Holy Thursday: Chrism Mass

Today we begin the famous Triduum, the three-day commemoration of Christ's suffering, death, and Resurrection. The first Mass of Holy Thursday is the Chrism Mass. It is celebrated by the Bishop in the Cathedral, and attended by the priests of the diocese. In order to allow more priests to attend, our diocese anticipates the Chrism Mass by celebrating Tuesday evening. Two things are done at the Chrism Mass. The first is the renewal of priestly vows, and the second is the consecration of oil. Today is the anniversary of the Eucharist. Since the Eucharist creates the priesthood, it is also the anniversary of priesthood. So priests are asked three questions. In brief they are:

Are you ready to renew your own dedication to Christ as priest of his new covenant?
I am.

Are you resolved to try to become more like Christ by joyfully sacrificing your own pleasure and ambition in order to bring peace and love to your bothers and sisters?
I am.

Are you resolved to celebrate the Eucharist and the other liturgical services with sincere devotion, and to teach the Christian faith without thinking of your own profit?
I am.

The people present then pray for their priests and bishop.

CONSACRATION OF OILS

The second part of the Mass is the consacration of the three oils to be used that year in the diocese. The first oil is the Oil of the Sick (OI = Olio Infirmorum), used for the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. The second oil is the Oil of the Catechumens (OC), used for people who are preparing for baptism. The third and final oil is Sacred Chrism (SC).

All three oils are simple olive oil, but the Chrism has a special aromatic balsam added to it. It gives off a delightful smell. In addition, as part of blessing the oil the Bishop calls down the Holy Spirit and breathes into the oil. Chrism is used for Baptism and Confirmation and for Holy Orders. My hands were anointed with Chrism as part of the Rite of Ordination.

This was the first time I have attended a Chrism Mass as a priest, and also consequently the first time I have renewed my priestly vows. It was a powerful moment to be united with our Bishop and with all the priests of the Diocese. I was reminded how Holy Spirit works in the Church not only by mysterious promptings, but also by lives lived for God, and oils to nourish those lives.

Greek Palm Sunday

Sunday was an absolutely unique experience. Outside of Rome in the city of Grotta Ferrata there is the only Greek monastery of Basilian monks in the whole Catholic word. In the year 1004, a group of monks came up from southern Italy, which at the time was very Greek in language, liturgy and politics. Led by St. Nilo and inspired by a vision of Mary, they founded a monastery and built a large brick church which was dedicated by Pope John XIX in 124. The monks lived according to the ancient rule of St. Basil the Great and celebrated the liturgy as it was celebrated in Constantinople.

In the infamous year 1054, the Pope in Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated each other, beginning a great schism between the western and eastern halves of the Church of Christ. The west followed the Pope and called itself Catholic. The east eventually disintegrated into separate Patriarchates under the name of Orthodox, although some eastern traditions recognize Papal authority and are called Catholic (if you find this confusing, so do I).

Back in Italy, much of the Eastern Christian practices were eventually replaced with the Roman liturgy, but the monastery in Grotta Ferrata continued to be very Greek but also very connected with the Holy Father in Rome. The monastery is therefore Catholic but not Roman, following instead the Byzantine tradition.

On Sunday I attended their celebration of Palm Sunday, which involved a procession with olive branches and a long liturgy which was half in Italian and half in Greek. They chanted the Epistle and the Gospel of the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in Italian, but unlike the Roman Catholic world they did not read the Passion Narrative, which waits until the Triduum to be proclaimed.

The priest faces forward as he used to in the Roman Church. There is no altar rail, but there is an iconostasis dividing the people and the Holy of Holies. During the consecration they close a curtain between the priest and people, and the voice of the priest is all that makes the consecration known to the people. They also give communion under the species of leavened bread. The Roman practice follows the Jewish passover in using bread without yeast, but in the East they see the miraculous action of yeast as an image of the transformation brought about by Christ (cf. Matthew 13:33).

After enjoying the day and a tour of the monastery, I stayed for their celebration of vespers. I found their liturgy different but also quite beautiful. The local Italians agree, since they filled the church for Mass and many came to the church to hear vespers. Their last prayer, in Greek, was taken from the Gospel of John, a prayer for Christian unity. I could not agree more.

But Online Reconciliation? Not Available

I wanted to add a few short thoughts to my brother's excellent post on online confession. Telling someone your sins can be a helpful act, but the more important component is the forgiveness of God and reconciliation with others. We all know we fall short of what we should be. When we recognize this fact, the tendency is to compromise our standards. So we gradually come to accept practices such as speeding, lying on tax returns or sex outside of marriage. This is why the sacrament is so important. We admit where we have failed, and we promise to do better. The problem with online confessing is that no one is making us promise to do better. The rest of us can browse 30,000 sins and begin to think, "I suppose I don't have to try so hard since no one else does." This is precisely the opposite of what confession should be all about.

Take for example the highly publicized case of President Bill Clinton acting improperly with an intern, and more recently of Gov. Eliot Spitzer using a call girl. The PBS NewsHour was sure that no one was prosecuted for this kind of activity. Isn't prostitution illegal? Shouldn't a person be punished for exploiting someone else? They certainly are in Sweden, where a 1999 law provides stiff penalties for using a prostitute. But no one here seems to be angry at the call-girl business. Poor Eliot Spitzer is guilty of disappointing a demanding public. Too bad the public demands so much. The most interesting thing about his case is how double-sided it was. The BBC observed, "As attorney general, he was the scourge of wrong-doing on Wall Street - in what now seems like a supreme irony, women's rights groups hailed his efforts to bring stronger penalties against men who used prostitutes" (Citation). Maybe a moment of real Reconciliation earlier in his life could have helped him see his hypocrisy and stop it before it was too late.

And think of how his sin has hurt others. There are the sad consequences for his girl whose name and picture have been plastered across newspapers. The media should have exercised restraint (for once) and kept her identity a secret, allowing her to escape to a more honorable profession. But we all want to hear about it so we can wag our heads and scoff and hope no one notices our hypocrisy. Some day, the public will cease to be shocked, and then a governor can publicly do this kind of behavior with no need for reconciliation. At least, we all seem to be hoping for it so we won't have to go to Reconciliation. But is something bad only because we think it is? Can we simply change our minds and erase guilt? Spitzer tried and failed. No matter how far our society advances, there will always be need for a wooden box with a priest inside.

Homily for Mar. 16

Lent6 Palm Sunday
The Mass of Palm Sunday has two parts. The first reading commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and the second is the reading of Christ's Passion. Because of the mystery of the Liturgy, we are able to actually participate in this greatest moment in history.
[Readings]

Online Confessional

Modern man has come a long way from crawling up to a wooden box to confess his sins to a priest. A recent article on CNN discusses the rise of online confession of sins. A brand of websites, generally started by large Protestant churches in the United States, allow you to anonymously post your sins in a digital admission of guilt. You can even browse through others confessions and leave comments if you want. In my opinion, it is bad enough to have your sins haunting the back of your mind, why would anyone would want their sins scattered to the winds of the world wide web? I suppose the promise of anonymity encourages the web savvy to find solace in the embrace of the internet. After all, the greatest burden of the sinner is feeling alone and cut off from the "good people" of the world by some unmentionable private sin. In a strange way, the sin becomes a ticket into a communion of sinners gathered around the warmth of a glowing plasma screen.

It bears mentioning that the Catholic confession is a completely different experience. Technology is almost non-existent; only the priest and the penitent and a screen between them, and you can dispense with the screen if you want. Anonymity is not guaranteed, in fact, it can be an intensely personal experience. The confidence that your sins will not be spread to others demands trust in the priest and in the Church who forbids any priest to reveal the sin of a penitent. The most intimidating thing about confession is, perhaps, the fact that the priest is not a silent screen. He is free to ask for more information; details that are easy to skip over to make the sin sound "not so bad."

Yet confession offers something that other forms of self-accusation never could, reconciliation with God and with the community. There is no need for the whole community to hear a person's transgressions, and if they are good people, they aren't really interested. The priest takes the burden on himself, and hears the sin on behalf of the community and offers their forgiveness. More importantly, the priest hears the confession on behalf of God and offers his forgiveness, through a human voice and a human face.

The biggest difference between a online admission of guilt and Catholic confession is that the first is centered on the person and on their sin. Catholic confession is centered on the love and the mercy of God, made visible in the scriptures and in Jesus Christ. The sins a person has committed, no matter how terrible, are like drops of blood in the fire of God's love. In front of that, our sins don't stand a chance. Confession helps us to grow in the spiritual life, and the first thing we need to learn is that we aren't really that important, and neither are our sins. It isn't like we just committed a sin that no one ever did before. The second lesson to the spiritual life is that we are important to God, and confession is really an encounter with that God who loves us and is calling us to a greater life than what we have been living. This realization changes the nature of confession forever. Perhaps the reason why few people approach confession is that no one really believes that God loves them, and they think the best we can hope for is a big online hug.

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

Living in Italy I have been able to enjoy some absolutely delicious cheeses, like gorgonzola, fresh ricotta, mozarella from buffalo milk and hard parmesan. Sometimes, however, I just miss a little bit of Wisconsin, so when a couple coming to visit asked me what I wanted them to bring, my eyes lit up.
On Friday they brought a grocery bag and stuffed it in my hand, and I quickly put it in the refrigerator on my hall. Sunday after morning Mass I took it out of the fridge and left it to warm up for a couple hours. As they warmed up, the cheese curds recovered a little bit of their original squeak, and the brick of aged cheddar got perfectly soft. Accompanied with a little Italian red wine and some crackers, it was an absolutely wonderful afternoon snack.
There is still almost a pound of the cheddar left sitting in the refrigerator. After some thinking I decided to buy a loaf bread so I can make grilled cheese sandwiches. As it says somewhere, blessed are the cheesemakers.

Homily for Mar. 9

Lent5 Jesus takes care of his Friends
We have a deep yearning that life not end in sickness and death, and not succumb to pain and injustice. For a friend of Jesus life does not end in death. Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead to show us that he is the Resurrection and the Life. No matter what it costs me, I want to be His friend.
[Readings]

Polar Plunged

Last Saturday we actually did it -- we jumped in freezing Lake Winnebago for the sake of Special Olympics. Our team of 12 from the Newman Center raised $3,544 !! And we had fun getting frozen. They cut a big hole in the ice just off shore, so the water is less than 4 feet deep. You go around to the back of the hole, jump in, and then jump out as quickly as you can! Fortunately they provided hot tubs for us to warm up in. The Compass (Green Bay's diocesan newspaper) put us on the front cover. See: Priest Takes Polar Plunge.

Homily for Mar. 2

Lent4 God helps the Inadequate
God chooses the unexpected and does amazing things with them. He chose John XXIII to start a council, little David to be king, and the man born blind to be a witness to Him. God can take you and do amazing things too.

[Subscribe with iTunes]